Acer OPD622 100W GAN Charger Review

Acer is not the first brand that springs to mind when shopping for a USB charger. The company is best known for laptops and monitors, but like most of the big PC brands, it has been quietly expanding its accessories range, and the Acer OPD622 100W GAN charger is one of the more interesting products to come out of that push.

On paper, it ticks the boxes I look for in a desk or travel charger. You get three USB-C ports, one USB-A port, a 100W maximum output from a single port, gallium nitride (GaN) internals to keep the size down, and a 2 m USB-C cable in the box. It is sold through Argos in the UK for £40, which puts it up against some very well established competition from Anker and UGREEN, both of which I have reviewed extensively.

I have been using the OPD622 as my main desk charger for a couple of weeks, running it through my usual tests with a selection of power banks that report their charging wattage in real time. Here is how it got on.

Design

The OPD622 is a plain, matte black block with a subtle grey Acer logo on one side and the full output specification printed on the rear. I always appreciate it when manufacturers print the complete port-by-port power table on the charger itself, because it saves digging out the box or a manual when you are trying to work out which port to use for a laptop.

The UK plug uses fixed pins rather than the folding design you see on some rivals, such as the Anker Prime 100W. That is a shame for travel, as the pins will happily stab through anything soft in a bag, and it makes the charger a slightly awkward shape to pack. The body also extends a reasonable distance sideways from the socket, so on a crowded extension lead it can encroach on the neighbouring outlet depending on orientation.

The business end houses all four ports in a vertical row: the orange USB-A port at the top, followed by USB-C1, USB-C2 and USB-C3, each clearly labelled, with a small blue LED at the bottom that lights whenever the charger has mains power. The LED is dim enough that it should not bother anyone in a bedroom, but it is always on, which is worth knowing if you are sensitive to that sort of thing.

Build quality feels solid. There is no flex or creaking in the casing, the ports grip cables firmly, and the whole unit sits securely in a wall socket without sagging, which is not a given with heavier chargers on UK sockets. The included 2 m cable is a welcome inclusion at this price. Most competing chargers ship bare, and a decent 100W-rated cable typically costs £10 or more on its own. Two metres is also a genuinely useful length, long enough to reach a sofa or desk from a skirting board socket.

Port Output Configuration

Performance

For testing, I used my usual method of charging high-capacity power banks that display their input wattage on screen, including a 100W-input UGREEN power bank and a pair of Anker power banks, one of which accepts up to 100W and one that tops out lower. This gives a sustained, repeatable load rather than the brief peaks you see when fast charging a phone.

Starting with the headline single-port numbers, USB-C3 into the UGREEN power bank settled at 96.5W and held it, which is about as close to the rated 100W as you will realistically see once cable and negotiation overheads are accounted for. The same port into the 100W-capable Anker bank sustained 88.4 to 88.6W over a 30-minute logging window, with the lower figure reflecting what the bank requested rather than any limitation of the charger. USB-C1 behaved exactly as the specification suggests, drawing 45.5W into the Anker bank against its 50W ceiling.

Multi-port behaviour matched the printed splits closely. With two power banks connected to the 100W-capable ports, I measured 60W into the UGREEN bank and 41.1W into the Anker simultaneously, roughly 101W combined and in line with the advertised 45W plus 60W allocation. Loading up three ports with three power banks produced 63.6W, 18.8W and 19.9W, again around 102W total. I saw no port renegotiation dropouts once devices had settled, although as with every multi-port charger, plugging in or removing a device causes a brief pause on the other ports while power is redistributed. That is normal behaviour, but worth knowing if you are running something sensitive like a Raspberry Pi from one of the ports.

Thermals were reasonable throughout. After an hour of sustained output close to 100W, the casing was warm to the touch but never uncomfortably hot, which is what I would expect from a GaN design of this size. There was no audible coil whine on my sample either, which cheaper chargers sometimes suffer from under heavy PPS loads.

Price and Alternative Options

The Acer OPD622 100W GAN charger is available from Argos for £40.

That is a fair price, but the competition at this level is fierce. The most direct rival is the UGREEN Nexode 100W 4-Port Charger, which has an identical three USB-C plus one USB-A layout and a £49.99 RRP, but is routinely discounted to £30 to £33 direct from UGREEN. The Nexode also puts 100W on both of its top two USB-C ports, avoiding the OPD622’s 50W C1 quirk, although it does not include a cable. If you already own a decent 100W cable and catch the discount, the UGREEN is the better pure value.

Anker’s options bracket the Acer on price. The Anker Prime 100W GaN Wall Charger sells through Argos at around £40, matching the Acer, but it only offers three ports (two USB-C, one USB-A) and ships without a cable, though it does gain folding pins that make it a nicer travel companion. Anker’s newer 100W three-port model with the built-in smart display carries a £59.99 RRP, so you are paying a £20 premium largely for the novelty of a wattage readout.

Factoring in the bundled 2 m 100W cable, which would cost £10 or so separately, the Acer’s effective price is closer to £30, and at that level it stacks up well. It looks like it is around £7 to £10 more than the UGREEN Nexode when that is on offer, but the cable and the dual 21V/5A PPS ports narrow the gap considerably. If the OPD622 itself gets discounted below £35, it becomes an easy recommendation.

Overall

The Acer OPD622 100W GAN charger is a solid first-party effort that performs exactly as advertised. In my testing it delivered 96.5W sustained from a single port, split power across multiple devices precisely as the printed tables promise, and stayed sensibly cool while doing it. The protocol support is broader than most rivals at this price, with the dual 21V/5A PPS ports being a genuine advantage for Samsung owners, and the included 2 m 100W cable adds real value that the headline price does not reflect.

It is not without irritations. The decision to make USB-C1 the 50W port rather than the 100W one goes against convention and will inevitably lead to people wondering why their laptop is charging slowly. The fixed UK pins make it less travel-friendly than folding-pin rivals, the USB-A port drops to 18W under multi-port loads, and the always-on LED will divide opinion.

At £40 with a quality cable included, it is competitively priced rather than a bargain, sitting a touch above the UGREEN Nexode 100W when that is discounted but comfortably below Anker’s display-equipped alternative. If you want a dependable four-port 100W charger from a mainstream brand and value the included cable, the OPD622 is easy to recommend. If outright value is the priority and you have a spare 100W cable, wait for a UGREEN discount instead.

James Smythe( Owner / Editor )

I am James, a UK-based tech enthusiast and the Editor and Owner of Mighty Gadget, which I’ve proudly run since 2007. Passionate about all things technology, my expertise spans from computers and networking to mobile, wearables, and smart home devices.

As a fitness fanatic who loves running and cycling, I also have a keen interest in fitness-related technology, and I take every opportunity to cover this niche on my blog. My diverse interests allow me to bring a unique perspective to tech blogging, merging lifestyle, fitness, and the latest tech trends.

In my academic pursuits, I earned a BSc in Information Systems Design from UCLAN, before advancing my learning with a Master’s Degree in Computing.

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