Anker Nano Charging Station 100W 7-in-1 Review: Is It Worth Buying

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The Anker Nano Charging Station is a three-outlet power strip plus four USB ports (two of them USB-C, sharing 100W between everyone) with a cable that retracts back into the housing on its own. It's a near-perfect fit for a desk hosting a laptop, a monitor, a lamp, and three phones at once. The one real downside: the outlets are Schuko-style (EU standard), so unless your wall sockets match, you'll need an adapter or a plug swap.

Count how many power bricks are currently hanging off your power strip. Mine came to seven: laptop, monitor, desk lamp, router, and three phones that somebody is always plugging in "just for a minute." At that point the strip starts looking like an octopus, and sooner or later someone's foot yanks the whole tangle off the wall, dragging half the desk's electronics down with it.

That's exactly the mess Anker built this "nano station" to fix. I went in skeptical of these all-in-one "outlet plus USB hub" gadgets — usually they're either a janky hub that runs hot, or the USB ports are so underpowered they can barely keep a smartwatch alive. This one's a different story.

What it actually is

The Anker Nano Charging Station is a compact block with three standard outlets (for the laptop, the lamp, the router) and four USB outputs: two USB-A and two USB-C. Total output is 100W, and that's not a marketing number for the spec sheet — you can genuinely charge a laptop at full USB-C speed while three other gadgets top up at the same time, and the power gets shared intelligently instead of dropping to a crawl on every port.

The feature that actually earns this thing its own review, rather than a "just another power strip" shrug, is the built-in InstaCord cable. Instead of a loose one-to-two-meter power cord you have to hide under the desk or wrangle with a rubber band, there's a short cord (roughly 70 cm) that reels itself back into the housing when you don't need it. Press the button and it retracts like a tape measure. Small detail, but the desk instantly looks tidier.

How it lives on a desk, not in a product photo

In practice the station takes up surprisingly little room — about the footprint of a thick deck of cards standing on its edge. You can screw it to the underside of the desk (mounting hardware is included), and then the whole cable setup disappears from view entirely — you just reach up and plug your phone into a port poking out from under the desk's edge. It's the rare case where someone thought through not just the function, but where you're actually supposed to put the thing.

The USB-C ports genuinely deliver fast charging — I tested it on a laptop that normally insists on its stock 65W adapter, and the Anker handled it without complaint, charging at the same speed as the original brick. That's the real reason to pick this over a plain outlet splitter: you stop needing to keep a separate, bulky laptop power brick stuffed under the desk — one compact hub covers everyone.

What's annoying — and honesty beats marketing copy here — is the outlet format. All three sockets are built to the EU standard (Schuko), which makes sense for a product sold mainly into European and American markets. If your wall outlets use a different plug shape, that means an adapter. Not a dealbreaker, it costs pennies, but it's the kind of thing you want to know before you order, not after you've unboxed it.

Compared to what I was using before — a plain five-outlet strip plus a separate USB hub clipped to the edge of the desk — the difference is obvious right away: instead of two separate cords tangling with each other, there's now one compact block and a tidy retractable cable. The real competitor here isn't another brand, it's the habit of living with three mismatched chargers cluttering the desk. If you're used to that chaos and it doesn't bother you, there's no reason to pay more. But if you swear every time you're hunting for a free outlet under the desk, this is the thing that fixes it for good.

The honest verdict

Worth buying if your desk hosts a laptop, a monitor, a lamp, and a pile of small electronics all at once, and floor space under the desk is chronically tight. Compact size, smart 100W distribution across ports, and a cable that disappears — those are the three things that actually make a desk more livable, not just things that look nice in the product photos.

Skip it if you absolutely need outlets in your local plug standard out of the box — you'll either be carrying an adapter everywhere or budgeting for one upfront. Also skip it if you need a heavy-duty strip for high-draw appliances like an iron or a hair dryer — this one is built with electronics in mind, not power-hungry household gear.

As for the price — check the full landed cost to your country on dede.sh, item plus forwarding plus import duty rolled into one number. It's honestly not cheap for a power strip, even a smart one. But once you tally up how many separate chargers, cables, and adapters this one compact device replaces, the premium starts to make sense — you're not paying for the logo, you're paying to stop crawling under your desk every day.

FAQ

Is 100W enough to charge a laptop and phones at the same time?

Yes, and that's the model's main selling point. The 100W is distributed dynamically across ports: if the laptop demands maximum power over USB-C, the other ports automatically get less, but without dropping to a crawl. In practice, a laptop plus two or three phones charging together is exactly the scenario this station was designed for.

Is it worth paying extra for the retractable-cable version instead of a regular USB power strip?

If your desk already has a rat's nest of cables under it, yes. The hidden cable and compact housing genuinely save space and hassle, especially if you mount the station under the desk. If you just need a few extra outlets with no aesthetic ambitions, a plain power strip will be cheaper and just as functional.

What about the Schuko-style outlets — will they work with my wall sockets?

This is the product's weakest point for markets that don't use the EU plug standard. You'll need either an adapter for your local outlet shape, or EU-style plugs already on hand for the laptop and lamp. It's a cheap fix — an adapter costs next to nothing — but better to know about it in advance than discover it after unboxing.