What does GaN mean on a charger?
Gallium nitride switching transistors, which run cooler and faster than silicon, so the same power fits in a smaller body.
Same 65 W, roughly half the volume. That is the whole GaN story.
Why it shrinks
Gallium nitride is a semiconductor that switches faster and loses less energy as heat than the silicon used in older power supplies. Faster switching means smaller magnetics and capacitors, and less waste heat means less room for cooling, so a GaN charger of the same wattage is typically a third to a half the volume of a silicon one.
What it does not tell you
GaN says nothing about protocols. A GaN charger is not automatically faster for your phone, does not necessarily support PPS or EPR, and is not automatically better made. It is a claim about the power stage, which is why we treat it as a size story rather than a performance story.
How to judge it honestly
The honest way to judge it is watts per cubic centimetre, which is exactly what our density leaderboard ranks.
when you travel, because the volume difference is real and measurable.
if the charger sits behind a desk forever. There, ports and split behaviour matter far more.