Is 120W All Hype? Who’s Putting on the Show in *“The Chaos of Inflated Charger Power Ratings”*

When a white charging brick is printed with the striking “120W,” what it presents on the shelf is not the specification itself, but more like a crude yet effective calling card—the bigger the number, the closer it seems to speed, efficiency, and a certain dignity of modern life. Unfortunately, the topic that has recently sparked heated discussion has exposed the hollow substance behind that calling card: the “120W” touted by some merchants does not correspond to real performance, and some have even tried to package it as a trademark, reducing a unit that should describe capability into nothing more than shell language.

On the narrative level, this is almost like a poorly made road movie: a sports-car badge is stuck on the hood, but the engine is still configured for a bygone era. Many chargers advertised as “120W super fast charging” or “66W flash charging” are crudely made once taken apart, with actual power of only 22.5W. Reports even point out that they are inferior to the original standard chargers bundled with thousand-yuan phones five years ago. The analogy from that tech blogger is actually quite accurate—“It’s like buying a toy car called ‘Ferrari,’ and the seller says that’s just its name and doesn’t mean it can go 300 km/h.” The problem is precisely that consumers buy chargers not to collect the name, but to obtain results that match the number.

Even more thought-provoking is that this is not an isolated mistake, but a “script” that the market has already tacitly accepted. Industry insiders reveal that in Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei electronics market, inflated power ratings are almost an open secret: the same generic casing, the same cheap circuit board—stick on “66W” and it can sell for 39 yuan; change it to “120W” and it can sell for 59 yuan. Seen from another angle, on some products the so-called “120W” is neither a technical specification nor a performance promise. It is merely a pricing prop, an emotional value printed on the shell, with no real connection to the internal components.

But the deeper problem is that this word game has even spread into the trademark system. Data from Qichacha shows that in recent years, multiple companies have attempted to register power units such as “120W” and “66W” as trademarks. Although the China National Intellectual Property Administration has rejected many such applications on grounds such as “lack of distinctiveness” and “likely to mislead the public,” between examination and rejection, these near-“rogue trademark” maneuvers have already been enough to complete one round of harvesting consumers’ perceptions. Luo Yonghao has also publicly questioned why some clearly unreasonable trademarks can be successfully registered. The reason this question sounds so jarring is that it hits the heart of the issue: when institutional response is slower than market speculation, misleading claims complete the transaction first.

If this chaos is viewed as a genre film about consumer society, then the most distorted character is not actually the merchants making exaggerated claims, but ordinary users who have been repeatedly trained to believe that “bigger numbers equal a better experience.” The purchasing advice is simple as well: rather than staring at the “66W” or “120W” on the casing, prioritize reputable brands and products that clearly state their protocol parameters, and be especially wary of models with unusually low prices and unusually overblown advertising. After all, the difference between 39 yuan and 59 yuan may seem to be buying faster charging, but in reality it may very well just be buying a larger font. Sadly, in a market where symbols race ahead while performance lags behind, what truly needs fast charging is never the phone, but regulation and information transparency itself.