Review: Cheap Pixel Watch Travel Charger
Super quick review here. I was sick of carrying the official Pixel Watch 4 charger around when I go away. It’s got a cable attached and takes up too much space in the bag. I’ve been after the Wasserstein On-The-Go Charger but it’s been out of stock forever. I noticed it was back in stock the other day, but a bunch of cheap alternatives had also popped up on Amazon. I probably should have bought the name brand, but it was twice the price of the clones, so I took a punt on this one instead1.
TL;DR it’s cheap and it works, but I wouldn’t trust the strap.
The charger. No cable attached, just a USB-C port on the front.
What It Is
It’s sold on Amazon as a “Charger for Google Pixel Watch 5/4, Magnetic Fast USB-C Charging 2 Pin Dock | Portable Charger for Pixel Watch 4 Charger 41mm/45mm, Type-C Cordless with Keychain for Google Pixel Watch 5”, which is the typical SEO word salad you see on Amazon these days. It was £9.99 when I bought it.
It’s basically an exact clone of the official charger (in looks at least), but with a USB-C socket instead of an attached cable.
It came in a branded plastic ziplock bag with a sticker listing the specs. Inside that was another, thinner ziplock bag with a much plainer sticker that looked like it had come straight from the factory. It is probably a generic product that a load of sellers are rebranding, so if you search Amazon you’ll find a bunch of near-identical ones under different names.
Does It Work?
Yes. I dropped my watch on it and it charged. It feels solid enough, but only time will tell how long it lasts.
The watch snaps on and seems to hold no worse than it does on the official charger. I don’t have a way of testing the charging speed, but it’s not been noticeably slower.
The bottom is rubber, which is a nicer touch than I expected at this price. It grips whatever it’s sitting on, so it doesn’t slide around the bedside table every time the cable gets nudged.
The Strap
It came with a terrible strap, and they’d probably have been better off not bothering. It’s one of those cheap “phone” straps with a clasp that gets thrown in as a freebie with everything. I don’t trust it to keep the charger on my keys, as I’ve had clasps like this fail on me enough times. Luckily I’ve got plenty of better ones to replace it with2.
The strap in question.
Final Thoughts
It’s cheap, it works and it takes up far less room than the official charger. Just don’t hang it off anything you care about losing.
I’ll be throwing it in my bag next time I go away, so we’ll see how it fares on the road.