Fuse Chicken Universal charger with battery takes on the world [Review]

Anyone headed for Europe or Australia needs a way to charge their iPhone or MacBook, and the Fuse Chicken Universal is ready. Despite its ridiculous name, this is a serious international charger and 6700mAh battery. Even better, it can wirelessly power up your iPhone.

We went on the road with this handy charger. Here’s what we found out.

This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.

Fuse Chicken Universal review: all-in-one travel charger

Aside from coloration, Fuse Chicken’s power adapter looks much like the one Apple ships with its MacBooks. Rather than being all white though, this third-party charger has black sides.

And more ports. In addition to a USB-C port there’s a USB-A one, allowing the user to send power to multiple devices at the same time.

Plus, the sides of Fuse Chicken’s charger do more than just look shiny. A wireless logo indicates where recent iPhone models should be placed to start Qi wireless charging.

The housing around the Universal’s US power prongs slides out, and can be easily replaced with the included prongs for the European Union, United Kingdom or Australia. Unlike the US equivalent, their electrical connectors don’t fold down, and these are far bulkier. You’ll want to transport this product with the US prongs in place and the others in the black velvet bag Fuse Chicken supplies.

These connectors send power to the USB ports as well as the 6700mAh battery. A convenient display on the front of the Universal indicates the capacity remaining.

Take note that the power prongs aren‘t the only option for charging the battery. The USB-C port can also take in 18W.

Overall, Fuse Chicken’s charger is 3.1 inches by 3.1 inches by 1.1 inches. It weighs 0.5 pounds. That’s with the US plug attached. As mentioned, the other plunge are larger and weigh roughly an ounce each.

Fuse Chicken Universal performance

We tested the wired and wireless charging capacity of this accessory. We also checked the efficiency of the battery.

The USB-C port on the Fuse Chicken Universal provides 18W of power. That’s enough to increase our test iPhone XS Max’s battery by about 30% in 20 minutes.

The 12W USB-A port is no slouch either, increasing this handset’s battery over 20% in 20 minutes.

The wireless charger is considerably slower. It was able to bump up our test device’s battery 11% in 20 minutes. That’s no reflection on Fuse Chicken’s design; wireless charging is inherently inefficient.

Over multiple charging cycles, the 6700mAh battery was able to give the XS Max 127% charge. That’s via cable — expect wireless charging to provide less power in the same amount of time.

This power bank should, in theory, be able to fully recharge the 3,174 mAh battery in the handset more than twice. But no battery is 100% efficient. This one is 60%, which is the exact average for consumer-grade batteries.

The battery charge indicator is great but not very accurate. Our testing showed this was reading 80% when the Universal had about 60% capacity left.

Fuse Chicken Universal final thoughts

There are plenty of international chargers available. The same goes external batteries… even ones that can do wireless charging. But to combine all these functions into one is unique in our experience.

Pricing

The official price for the Fuse Chicken Universal is $84.95, a fairly typical price for a charger and battery combo with bonus features.

Buy from: Amazon

For comparison, the myCharge HubMax Universal is a rival power bank that costs $89.99. It includes power plugs, though only for the US. And it has Lightning and USB-C cables, but no wireless charging.

Or you could get the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit and use your MacBook charger. It’s $29, but you lose out on the additional USB charging port, wireless charging, and the built-in battery. Anyone who doesn’t have a MacBook would have to buy the adapter ($49) to use those plugs.

Fuse Chicken provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See our reviews policy, and check out more stuff we recommend.