You Can Rapidly Charge Your Mac and Phones in Parallel Using the Choetech PD72-1C3U 72W 4-Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger with USB Power Delivery

If you want an affordable AC charger for your Mac as well as your smartphones, you can use the Choetech PD72-1C3U 72W 4-Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger. This China made charger offers 60 watts of charging over its single USB Type-C port for Mac's as well as 12 watts of charging from its three USB Type-A ports for phones, which is also similar to the Nekteck 72W USB Type-C PD Charger Station.

Like its 32 watts based Choetech PD32-1C1U 32W Dual Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger or 51 watts based Choetech PD51-1C1U 51W Dual Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger siblings, the Choetech PD72-1C3U 72W 4-Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger is also USB-IF certified as seen from the official Certified USB logo on the front of the box and on the charger itself. Even when USB-IF certified, the charger fails many USB compliance tests (see more details at the bottom of this review) so be extra careful when using this charger.

Note that while the Choetech PD72-1C3U 72W 4-Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger supports USB Power Delivery based charging, it can also support Qualcomm Quick Charge technology to charge Qualcomm Quick Charge enabled phones (click here to see how we tested this charger with the Xiaomi Mi 5 phone).

Just like the Choetech 32W charger in this review or 51W charger as seen here, no separate USB Type-C to Type-C charging cable was included in the packaging which needs you to use your own cable with the Choetech PD72-1C3U 72W 4-Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger. It does however come with a power cord to plug into a AC wall outlet for charging.

The USB Type-C port supports many different power profiles- 15 watts (5 volts @ 3 amps), 27 watts (9 volts @ 3 amps), 36 watts (12 volts @ 3 amps), 45 watts (15 volts @ 3 amps), and 60 watts (20 volts @ 3 amps) using USB Power Delivery 2.0 technology. We also found out that this charger can also support Qualcomm Quick Charge technology for charging as observed here.

Note that while the USB Type-C port can independently charge up to 60 watts, the USB Type-A ports can at most deliver 12 watts (5 volts @ 2.4 amps) on an aggregate basis.

If you just want a lower range charger good enough to power your PC or phone, you can go for the Choetech PD32-1C1U 32W Dual Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger or Choetech PD51-1C1U 51W Dual Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger.

Using the USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs with the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester, we performed the following tests for the Choetech PD72-1C3U 72W 4-Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger.

The USB Power Test App first negotiates a power contract for every PDO supported by the Choetech charger, and increases the load gradually to find the threshold where over current protection (OCP) kicks in and voltage and current start to drop for safety reasons.

The USB Power Test App reports out all the PDO's supported by the Choetech charger and their OCP thresholds. OCP thresholds for the Choetech charger are set at about 18-22% above the maximum current levels for the fixed PDO's.

PDO	OCP (A)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	3.66
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A	3.6
PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 3A	3.56
PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 3A	3.55
PDO#5 Fixed: 20V 3A	3.57

The USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs also produces an I-V curve which graphically shows the relationship between voltage and current for each PDO. We can observe current fold-back behavior for all the PDO's except for the 9V PDO where as the current increases beyond the OCP threshold, the voltage starts to curve down rather than immediately shutting off. The 9V PDO shows the voltage immediately shuts off once the current crosses over the OCP threshold.

Since the Choetech PD72-1C3U 72W 4-Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger is a multi port charger, the USB Power Test App can be used to determine whether each output port of the charger is able to supply power independently. For every PDO supported by the Choetech charger, the USB Power Test App increases the load gradually for both the USB Type-C and Type-A ports to detect any power loss at the highest load limit for each port.

USB Type-C Port

USB Type-A Port

The USB Power Test App reports out the voltage, current and load limits for all the PDO's supported by the Choetech charger for each port.

Port1 PDO	Port2 PDO	Port1 (V)	Port1 (A)	Port1 Loading(%)	Port2 (V)	Port2 (A)	Port2 Loading(%)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A		5.02	1.46	100% (7.3W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	5.03	1.46	100.38%	4.85	2.97
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A	5.01	1.48	100.97%	8.78	2.97
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 3A	5.02	1.47	100.99%	11.74	2.97
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 3A	5.01	1.51	103.45%	14.7	2.99
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#5 Fixed: 20V 3A	5.01	1.52	103.94%	19.63	2.99
	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A				4.85	2.96	100% (14.4W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	5.03	1.46		4.85	2.97	100.12%
	PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A				8.78	2.97	100% (26.1W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 3A	5.01	1.48		8.78	2.97	99.88%
	PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 3A				11.74	2.97	100% (34.9W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 3A	5.02	1.47		11.74	2.97	99.88%
	PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 3A				14.69	2.98	100% (43.8W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 3A	5.01	1.51		14.7	2.99	100.17%
	PDO#5 Fixed: 20V 3A				19.63	2.99	100% (58.7W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	PDO#5 Fixed: 20V 3A	5.01	1.52		19.63	2.99	100%

The USB Power Test App can also use the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester integrated with the GW Instek APS-7100 programmable AC power supply to compare the charger's power output vs power input so that power efficiency can be measured and compared to regulatory limits from United States of Energy (DOE) Level VI or European Union's CoC Tier 2 requirements. We can repeat the power efficiency tests for different PDO's, current load conditions, and different AC input ranges, allowing us to get a complete picture of power efficiency ranges across all different usage scenarios.

Using the USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester from Granite River Labs to run just a subset of the full USB Power Delivery compliance test suite for the Choetech PD72-1C3U 72W 4-Port USB Type-C PD Wall Charger, compliance failures were mostly observed even though the charger shows it is USB-IF certified, so do take better caution when using this charger.

USB-IF High Level Mapping Summary

Sl No	Test Category	Test Group Description	Test Result
1	PHY_PRIMARY_TX	BMC Physical Layer Transmitter	FAIL
2	PHY_PRIMARY_RX	BMC Physical Layer Receiver	FAIL

Result Summary

Sl No	Test ID	Test Name	Test Result
2	TDA.2.1.1.2	TDA.2.1.1.2 BMC PHY TX BIT	FAIL
3	TDA.2.1.2.2	TDA.2.1.2.2 BMC PHY RX INT REJ	FAIL
4	TDA.2.1.2.1	TDA.2.1.2.1 BMC PHY RX BUSIDL	FAIL
11	TDA.2.2.7	TDA.2.2.7 BMC PROT BIST NOT 5V SRC	FAIL
12	TDA.2.2.8	TDA.2.2.8 BMC PROT REV NUM	PASS

We further verify using the GRL-USB-PD C2 Compliance Test Solution App to generate the below load trace diagram to see that the charger also supports charging at different voltages and current levels.