Are cheap car chargers worth it? Kmart Anko chargers reviewed

Car chargers aren't complicated. Buying a half-decent one shouldn't be either nor should it cost you an arm and a leg. Kmart's Anko brand doesn't have the pedigree for portable power solutions that the likes of Belkin or Anker do. Still, it has plenty to offer if you're after a cheap power bank or car charger and aren't keen to fret the specs involved.

I took two of the cheapest car chargers that Kmart offers out for a spin to see how they fared and while I wasn't blown away, I didn't have any major complaints. Kmart's Anko USB Car Chargers didn't exactly delight me, but they didn't disappoint either.

In Australia, Kmart's cheapest car charger comes in two varieties. The cheaper of the two is priced at $5 while the more expensive model sits at $10. Aside from a few small design differences, the dividing line in functionality here is that the former features a single USB-A port while the latter has two.

If you're only looking to charge one device, that's hardly a problem but paying an extra $5 and doubling that is a pretty small ask all things considered. For a sense of how the two versions of the Kmart Anko USB Car Charger compare at a glance, see the below.

Let's not mince words, the Kmart Anko USB Car Charger looks exactly like you'd expect a budget-friendly car charger to look like. It's a pod-shaped piece of plastic with a car power socket connected on one end and a USB-A slot on the other. It weighs almost nothing and its only notable feature is an LED status light that indicates whether or not it's charging a connected device.

All told, there's not a lot to say here. Then again, there's not really much to complain about either. Since it looks like such a generic and typical car charger, there's basically zero room for confusion as to how to use it.

If you're used to spending more, it's hard to not expect more from your tech. For $5 though, the Kmart Anko USB Car Charger does a passable job of handling the absolute essential things you'd want from a car charger. There's not much in the way of extras but that's kinda by design.

That said, there are some small differences between the single and double-port models. The cheaper Kmart Anko USB Car Charger with one USB-A port features a circular shape while the more expensive one with two ports is more squared off and comes with a geometric texturing that adds a bit of visual punch to an otherwise bare-bones aesthetic.

The performance is the obvious place to start if you're looking for areas of the car charger experience where the Kmart Anko USB Car Charger cuts corners.

When it comes to the single-port model, you're looking at a limit of 5W in maximum charging speeds. For those accustomed to modern fast charging, that's a pretty harsh speed limit and even if you aren't it's hardly ideal. You don't have to spend that much more to get speeds that are comparable to traditional wired chargers, though you do probably have to spend more than $5.

On that, the two-port model is slightly faster. It offers a higher maximum output of 15W across the two ports. Again, that's not quite fast charging but does represent a decent speed-up on its single-port counterpart.

That said, if you're planning on charging two devices at once that sum ends up split between the two. In any case, if performance and support for things like fast charging or multiple devices is something that matters to you then Kmart's Anko car chargers might not be the right fit.