Here's How Fast Ryobi's New Dual Platform Charger Charges Your 18V And 40V Batteries

For people who have fallen into the rabbit hole of building things, power tools are the equivalent of using a brush on a canvas. With the right power tools, we can make a project come to life faster than previously possible, whether it's building walls, installing tiles, making furniture, or the little finishing touches that add character, like attaching photos or shelves for your trinkets. However, if you don't pay attention, it can quickly create new problems in your home. Apart from flooding your garage with endless tools and knowing where everything is, it's also making sure that your batteries are charged when you need them. As we own more tools, this can become more complicated, unless you invest in something like the Ryobi Dual Platform Charger, which lets you charge both its 18V and 40V batteries.

So, how does it stack up against how long it used to take other chargers to get batteries from zero to full? For its 18V ONE+ charging mechanism, Ryobi shares that it only takes 15 minutes for it to fully charge a 4Ah Edge battery, making it the fastest in this particular system. This is pretty exceptional considering it took older battery and charger combos like the 18V 4Ah ONE+ battery and Dual Chemistry IntelliPort Charger around 20 minutes just to charge one Ah. On the other hand, Ryobi states that it only takes a quarter of the time to charge its 40V 6Ah battery. But what else should you know about it? 

Apart from being one of the fastest Ryobi chargers in the market today, there are a lot of other benefits to owning the new Dual Platform Charger. To start with, one of the main reasons anyone should have when getting the new Ryobi Dual Platform charger is that it's designed to charge two separate battery systems in one go. With this, you don't have to carry two different chargers if your upcoming projects require different batteries. In the same vein, it can take up less space in your travel bag, work station, or home. If applicable, it's even wall mountable, so you can make use of your vertical storage.

Second, Ryobi mentions that it has a slew of other features like active cooling, Energy Save Mode, and an LED light, which can help you understand what's going on with it. In addition, it has the added benefit of being safe to store your batteries in it, so you'll never find yourself at a worksite with a charger (but without batteries). That said, if you don't really own both types of batteries, there might be other models that may fit your needs more. Priced at $99, it's more expensive than a lot of other chargers in the portfolio, but not by a significant amount. For the 18V chargers, your other options include the 18V ONE+ Dual-Port Simultaneous Charger ($79), 18V ONE+ 6-Port Fast Charger ($89), and the 18V ONE+ 8A Rapid Charger ($89).

Because the Ryobi 18V/40V Dual Platform Charger is still pretty fresh out of the factory, it doesn't yet have a lot of reviews. That said, it has generated a perfect 5-star rating from the 11 people who have given feedback so far on its official website, which makes for a promising start for any tool. So far, several people have mentioned that it does fulfill the promise of being significantly faster than other chargers and has genuinely helped reduce the clutter in their workspaces. A few users also praised how it's easy to shift between tools using either battery systems, making it an efficient workflow solution.

And of course, let's not forget that one of the reasons why there are so many counterfeit Ryobi batteries and chargers out there is that they've generally proved to be of good quality across the board. For example, both the 40V Fast Charger and 18V ONE+ 6-Port Fast Charger hold an average rating of 4.8 stars; the former from over a hundred reviewers, while the latter has over 380 reviewers. On the other hand, the 18V ONE+ Dual-Port Simultaneous Charger even has a slightly higher rating at 4.9 stars from more than 120 people. But regardless of which model you decide to invest in, it's best to only buy from authorized dealers to prevent a few avoidable problems, which is why we've previously cautioned about buying Ryobi products from Amazon.