I would like to thank Kovol for supplying the review sample.

Kovol specializes in providing high capacity chargers for all your device needs. This includes your notebook, portable gaming devices, phones, tablets or power banks. On top of that, they offer the usual accessories such as cables, to go with your purchase. While Kovol may not be a household name yet, they have been around since 2008. You can find their products directly on their website or through the usual online retailers like Amazon. Kovol sent us their Sprint 120 W 4-Port PD GaN Charger, which is meant to be your all-in-one solution for a wide range of devices. Chargers have always had the issue of electrical efficiency and resultant heat production. As such, pushing lots of electricity through a small form factor can have limitations. GaN or Gallium Nitride technology produces less heat due to a higher electrical efficiency of approximately 95%, compared to previous silicon technology that topped out around 87%.

Packaging and Contents

The unit ships in a compact white and blue cardboard box, with a simple image on the front. On the back, you will find safety certifications and the general specifications of the unit.

Within the package you find the Kovol Sprint itself, and a high quality power cable alongside some basic instructions.

A Closer Look

The charger unit prominently features the Kovol branding on top of the metal housing. The Sprint feels extremely good in hand, hefty with no flex, actually providing a better first impression than the Apple MacBook Pro charger. With its bulky, tube like shape, the Kovol Sprint is also easier to handle. But, as Kovol advertising is trying to communicate: the Sprint is meant to live on your desktop rather than being a more portable focused design.

On our scale, the Kovol Sprint 120 W GaN charger clocks in at a hefty 330 grams or 0.36 W/g. In comparison the Apple GaN 96 W unit is slightly larger, but only weighs 289 grams, resulting in a slightly lower 0.33 W/g.

In the front, you will find four green ports, consisting of two USB-A Quick Charge 3.0 capable outputs and two USB-C Power Delivery 3.0 capable ports. This means that you can plug in notebooks such as a MacBook Pro and draw as much as 100 Watts from a PD port, leaving 20 W for a phone for example. But, the device will balance things a bit as well, so that you may easily charge four devices at the same time, or connect two larger devices to the PD 3.0 ports and charge each of them at 60 W. In other words, there is no walled garden between the four connectors, with the available 120 W being able to routed to power each of the plugs freely to their respective max capacities.

Use and Conclusion

The Kovol Sprint 120 W has three small LEDs that light up in the front of the unit when powered on. Plugging in various devices such as a Pixel 5 or 14″ MacBook Pro, the Sprint managed to power them all without issue. The actual power draw was smartly controlled by what each of the devices needed at the time, as such, it was impossible to snap a picture of the total power draw successfully. In other words, it was actually quite difficult to push the limit of the 120 W max draw the unit was capable of, with the devices I have on hand. As such, it is safe to say, for the target audience, this capacity is plenty, considering you may set a notebook, a phone, a tablet and perhaps ear buds or a power bank to charge all at the same time. However, those with large gaming/workstation notebooks should obviously stay clear of models such as this, as those laptops tend to draw far more than typical GaN chargers or even the type C PD interface can provide. Even so, Kovol also offers a 140 W wall charger for even the most powerful 16″ MacBook Pro.

The Kovol Sprint 120 W Desktop Charger retails for $99.99, but is also routinely on sale for around $10 less, as it is on Amazon at the time of writing. This isn’t cheap, but you do get a high quality product for the price. Alternatively, there is also a 65 W version, which clocks in at $49.99 instead. Looking at the market of GaN based chargers, those with the same charging flexibility and similar capacity tend to sell for around $80 – $100 as well, but those are mostly wall chargers, not the more stationary desktop type. However you could save some money if you require one just one or two outputs instead.