Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro on 9 September, and buried in the tech specs is the number that matters more than any of the camera talk: 60 W. That is a real change, and it makes most of the advice written before Tuesday wrong.
The short answer
To get Apple's headline charging claim — up to 50 % in around 15 minutes — the iPhone 18 Pro needs a 60 W USB-C adapter. For MagSafe, Apple quotes 25 W at the phone and up to 50 % in 30 minutes, but the charger has to be fed by a 35 W adapter to get there. Qi2 tops out at 25 W. And there is no power adapter in the box — just a 1 m USB-C cable. Your old 20 W brick still charges the phone perfectly well; it simply will not do it in fifteen minutes.
If you want one answer and no reading: the 67 W GaN with three ports clears Apple's figure with room to spare, and still has two ports left for everything else on the desk. 29,99 €
Why this is a bigger change than it looks
For most of the last five years the honest advice was: a phone does not need more than about 20–30 W, and anything above that is bought for a laptop. That advice is now out of date. Apple has moved the phone's own ceiling into a bracket that used to belong to laptops, which means the charger most people own — the 20 W adapter from an older iPhone, or the one bundled with a pair of earbuds — is suddenly the slow option rather than the correct one.
It also creates a gap that catches people out. A 45 W or 47 W charger sounds close to 60 W. It is not. Charging speed does not scale smoothly: the phone negotiates a power profile with the adapter, and if the adapter cannot offer the profile the 15-minute claim depends on, you do not get 80 % of the speed — you get the next profile down. Close is not close enough here.
And there is a second, quieter trap. Multi-port chargers split their power budget. A 67 W three-port charger gives its full output to one device on its own, but plug a second thing in and the first drops. If you want the fifteen-minute charge, the phone has to be alone on the charger — which is exactly why buying above 60 W rather than exactly at it is the sensible move.
The numbers, in plain terms
- 60 W wired — the fast-charge bracket. This is what Apple's 15-minute figure needs. In practice it means a 65 W or larger adapter, with the phone plugged in on its own.
- 35 W — the MagSafe feed. The magnetic charger only reaches its 25 W if the wall adapter behind it can supply 35 W. This is the specification almost every listing forgets to mention.
- 25 W wireless (MagSafe or Qi2) — convenience, not speed. Half a charge in about half an hour. Right for a desk or a bedside table, wrong for the twenty minutes before you leave the house.
- 20–25 W — still perfectly fine. Slower, not broken. If your phone charges overnight, this bracket costs you nothing and saves you money.
- The cable is part of the number. A 60 W charger behind a 15 W cable is a 15 W setup. The cable Apple includes is fine; the three-year-old one in the drawer probably is not.
One more thing worth knowing, and it is not about Apple: since 28 April 2026 the EU common charger rules cover laptops as well as phones and tablets — USB-C ports, Power Delivery above 15 W, and a pictogram on the box stating the wattage and whether a charger is included. Between that rule and Apple's new 60 W figure, the single GaN charger that handles the phone and the laptop has stopped being a niche purchase and become the default one.
What we'd pick
Four picks, matched to what you actually want out of the phone. All in stock today.
- 67 W GaN — 3 ports, gun metal — the one to buy. It clears Apple's 60 W with headroom rather than sitting exactly on it, which matters because the moment a second device joins the charger the budget splits. Two USB-C Power Delivery ports plus a QC 3.0 USB-A, in a GaN housing that stays smaller and cooler than the wattage suggests. It is also the pick if the phone is not the biggest thing you plug in — it charges a laptop properly. 29,99 €
- 65 W GaN — 3 ports — the same job for four euros less, with slightly less room above Apple's figure. Take this one if the desk is mostly phone and earbuds rather than phone and laptop. 25,99 €
- 40 W GaN — Apple Edition — the MagSafe adapter. Comfortably above the 35 W a MagSafe charger needs, in a white GaN housing built for the Apple desk. It will not deliver the 15-minute wired charge, and we would rather say so than let you find out. 17,99 €
- Braided USB-C cable, 60 W — the part that quietly undoes everything above. Six euros, braided so it survives the bag, and rated exactly where the phone now sits. 5,99 €
If your phone charges overnight and speed was never the problem, the 25 W wall charger at 15,99 € remains the sensible buy — and if the real complaint is a battery that does not reach the evening, a charger is the wrong answer entirely: a 5 000 mAh magnetic power bank keeps charging while the phone stays in your hand, for 29,99 €.
Before you order
Pre-orders opened on 12 September and the phone reaches shops on 18 September. The adapter is a separate purchase whichever model you choose, so it is worth deciding now rather than at the counter — the accessory aisle on launch day is not where anyone makes a careful decision.
The one thing to remember
Sixty watts, on its own port, through a cable rated for it. Miss any one of those three and you have a phone that charges at the speed of whatever you got wrong — and no amount of extra wattage anywhere else in the chain will fix it.
