Tech
The Aster 65W charger, six months on
A small charger that replaced three larger ones. After six months of daily travel, here is what held up and what did not.
By Ravi Deshpande1 min read6,240 readers2 Sept 2026
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Six months is long enough for a charger to reveal itself. Most of them fail in one of three ways: the pins loosen, the plastic discolours, or the power negotiation gets confused when you plug in a second device.
What it replaced
A laptop brick, a phone charger and a spare for the bag. One unit now does all three, and the bag is measurably lighter for it.
Where it gets warm
Under a full 65W draw the casing reaches a temperature you would not want to hold for long. That is normal for gallium nitride at this size and it has not throttled, but it is worth knowing before you tuck it behind a sofa cushion.
The port-sharing behaviour
Plug a phone into the second port while a laptop is charging and the laptop drops to 45W without renegotiating from zero. That sounds minor until you use a charger that does it badly, at which point your screen flickers and your laptop briefly believes it is on battery.
Verdict
It has done everything asked of it for six months with no discolouration, no loose pins and no confused handshakes. The missing cable is an irritation at this price, not a dealbreaker.
Our picks
Aster 65W GaN
₹2,8908.8 / 10
Replaces a laptop brick without the heat
What works
- Charges a 14-inch laptop at full rate
- Two ports share power sensibly
- Folding pins survive a bag
What does not
- Warm enough to notice under sustained load
- No cable included
| Output | 65W total, 45W + 20W shared |
|---|---|
| Ports | 2x USB-C |
| Weight | 112g |
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