BMX Gansta Pixel review: a travel charger with a clever display
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The BMX Gansta Pixel makes charging speeds visible and packs adapters for trips abroad. Here’s what impressed me, what didn’t, and whether it earns a place in your travel bag
Owning an aesthetically pleasing charger isn't something that's ever been high on my bucket list. They're usually tucked away behind the sofa, or beneath a desk... But here's one that's made to be left on show.
It's the Gansta Pixel by BMX and it's a lovely looking thing, with four ports, interchangeable plugs, and a display that acts as a power meter.
BMX offers two versions, one with 100 watts of output, and one with 140 watts. The latter is aimed at MacBook Pro users who need that kind of grunt, but the unit can split power across its outputs, so it's handy for power users.
What I liked about the BMX Gansta Pixel
Apart from being extremely attractive, the pixelated display is more useful than it first sounds. If your laptop is charging slowly, you can check what it is drawing from the mains instead of guessing whether the cable, charger or laptop is responsible.
It shows readings for each port as well as the total output, and adds animated charging and standby indicators.
You can also change the screen brightness or switch it off, which matters if the charger ends up beside your bed.
Both models have three USB-C ports and one USB-A port, and the ports share the 100 watts or 140 watts. Plug everything into the 140W model and BMX lists a split of up to 65W, 45W, 7.5W and 7.5W. On the 100W model, that becomes 45W, 30W, 7.5W and 7.5W.
The travel aspect is great, too. There's a folding US plug, interchangeable UK, EU, and Australian adapters, and you even get a one metre braided USB-C cable and a pouch in the box.
What I didn't like about the BMX Gansta Pixel
Although it's aimed at travellers, it's not small. The body measures 62 x 65 x 35.9mm and it weighs 259g for the bare unit. That said, it's effectively a replacement for a bundle of chargers, so you could argue that makes up for a bit of bulk.
Another thing I've noticed is that it becomes noticeably warm under a heavy load. This isn't unique to the Gansta Pixel, and it does have built-in safety tech, but it's something to bear in mind.
Overall verdict: should you buy a Gansta Pixel
It's hard not to ignore the fact that BMX is up against some tech giants in this part of the market. Anker and Ugreen both do charging blocks like this, with a variety of ports and even with a display. And they're around the same money or less.
If you wanted the 100 watt Gansta Pixel it's £79.99, and the 140 watt version is £99.99. I'm not going to pretend that's cheap, but if you compare it to the obvious rivals it's pretty competitive. And that's before you consider the fact this one has a swappable travel output.
And then there's that delightful display. It's quite unique.
Whether you'd rather have a dot matrix display or an LED display is down to personal preference, but the Gansta Pixel performs every bit as well as it should, looks the part, and has that natty travel feature.
If it matches up to your use case, it's going to be a great bit of kit to take in any travel bag.