Xilence Laptop Charger
Xilence XM010 90W Mini Universal Laptop Charger Review
Review by: Jennifer Griffiths
Video & Testing by: Philip Griffiths
Introduction :
Most of us who own laptops or work with people that own them will be faced with having to replace the charger for it. There are many laptop chargers on the market. They range from branded by the manufacturer, OEM, compatible, and universal compatible. Factoring in that stocking laptop chargers can take a lot of space up and they may be slow to sell, sometimes having one or two of the universals is a better option. So, today we will be looking at one and seeing how it measures up. Will it be safe? Will it do the job? Will it bring us a nice profit? Will it steal the show, or will it fall like the Roman Empire? All this and more in this edition of Tech For Techs.
Manufacturer statement:
Xilence 90w laptop adaptor: despite its slim design, the Xilence 90W mini universal notebook adaptor has a powerful interior. It produces a stable output voltage of 24V and achieves remarkable efficiency of over 85%. It includes eleven plugs for the most popular notebooks and netbooks. The integrated LED display shows information on the output voltage at all times and its full-range, adjustable voltage (between 100V and 240V) allows the power adaptor to be used worldwide.
About Xilence:
Xilence has been manufacturing cooling and noise-minimising PC components for over 10 years. Based in Germany but with global headquarters in Taiwan, it is owned by the Listan group (which also owns Be Quiet) and has a growing R&D department of German and Taiwanese engineers tasked with creating thermal solutions for increasingly-demanding heat-generating tasks. Although not the cheapest, Xilence has a pedigree for reliable, high quality products with lots of “bang for your buck” across its PSU, cooler, case fan and laptop accessory ranges. Xilence has, most recently, launched its Performance X PSU range aimed directly at the gaming PC users – with such a large, stable power supply market in the UK, largely dominated by just a few brands at higher price points, there is a huge market for well-priced products that perform well.
Packaging:
When you look at the box you see the information written clearly on it. Fair enough. But the picture of the charger looks like a charcoal sketch. It is also small and well, if I were an art teacher I would have to say, “You are not seeing”. In lay terms, it’s a bit uninspiring. Many people go by boxes, so it is good to remember to make it stand out. Give it its dues, it is a clean black and white and easy to read box.
Unboxing:
Inside you will find the charger, the lead, the tips for different laptops, and a leaflet packed with a slip of cardboard. All are nice and tidy when you unbox them.
Installation:
It’s straightforward what to do here. But, in basics, just match the tips to the back of the box to see what exactly is needed. After this, take the correct tip from the strip, snap onto the end securely, attach the cable, remove all plastics/card etc and plug into the socket of the laptop and mains.
The tips of the laptop connect the adapter with ease. They also fit snugly so they dont pull off easily like on other power adaptors we have seen. It also comes with the rectangle tip for Lenovo laptops and the long-nosed tip for some of the problematic HP Laptops on the market.
Testing:
We tested this on an HP that came through the door, not powering on. *Not getting charge*. Their laptop charger was faulty. The charger does what it promises, and in the end, our customer walked away happy to purchase this from us. In testing the connections fit well and did not snap off when we unplugged it from the laptop like some do. In the end, it lived up to its promise.
We also tested it on a four new Laptops to compare the running temperatures. We first ran BurnInTest on each laptop for 1 hour and tested the temperature of the original adaptors. Then, we did the same test again for 1 hour on the Xilence charger. All results we found were within 1°C of each other.
Suppliers: Available exclusively at Target Components, The whole Xilence Range can be found here
RRP: Target Components Recommend a 20% Profit on this item. It's just under £20 (inc Vat) to buy. I would recommend a 25%-50% margin on it and sell it for around £25-£30.
Conclusion:
There’s not a lot of things to say about a laptop charger. But, I will say that there was a lot of forward thinking that went into making this one. The connectors fitting securely, and the array to chose from made me consider stocking a few of these in my shop for the customers that do not want to wait for a genuine to be ordered.
Extra Info:
We have been asked by a few members to see the inside of this product, and to measure the voltage. We tested the voltage, while it was not connected to a laptop and we found that the voltage did fluctuate by around 0.2v on average. This is acceptable to us as all the OEM chargers we have tested got around the same results. We opened the laptop charger up to take a look inside. The main components of the charger had 2-3 layers of protective shielding. The soldering and cabling looked to be of good quality. Overall the insides looked around the same or better then other chargers we have seen.
Stand out point: I like the way the connections snap on and stay in place securely.
Pros:
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Good selection of laptops can use the product
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Good secure connection of adaptors
Cons:
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It won’t look great on the shelf….artwork is atrocious.
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No see-through window so the customers can see the connections, just a drawing.
Scores:
Packaging: 3
Installation: 4
Value: 5
Performance: 4
That being said I hereby award the Xilence 90W Mini the TFT Gold award