KOVOL Sprint / Mate 120W GaN charger review
The KOVOL Mate, or KOVOL Sprint depending on where it’s printed, is a 4-port Gallium Nitride 120 Watt capable desk charger with Quick Charge 3.0, PD 3.0, PPS charging, and the capability of charging multiple devices at up to 120 watts.
That 120 Watts is total power across the four ports I’ll note, PD is limited to 100 watts, and this device is massively overkill for your average phone charging scenario we generally cover. This is a laptop + phone + tablet + maybe another laptop… I don’t know your business type of charger.
I’ll be referring to this as the KOVOL Sprint (which is the seller’s Amazon listing,) as opposed to the Mate (which is printed on the box.)
We’ve covered in the past that I don’t particularly have a lot to say about chargers. They generally work or they don’t and there’s not a lot to note in my opinion. This one’s a bit different.
The first thing I noticed was it’s generally cool to the touch. Even under everything I could throw at it the KOVOL Sprint didn’t heat up much, if any. That’s a good thing and evidently what the GaN style chargers are known for. You’ll see a heat savings and over the life of the product you’ll probably save a few cents on electricity due to waste heat. Due to less heat you’d assume a slightly longer lifespan, but I can’t test that if I want to get the review out in the next five years.
I doubt you’d save much, but the lack of heat is impressive. Something to consider if you’re currently fighting a small room heating and cooling scenario.
The KOVOL Sprint (or Mate based on packaging) is a very technically impressive charger, but in the end it’s cooler, faster, slightly more energy efficient, and probably safer all around than previous models and that comes at a price. That said, after looking at the pricing on similar 100 watt models, that price isn’t out of line. Paul’s just a cheapskate.
