Flat Irons & Straighteners
ghd Platinum+ vs Chronos: Which ghd Iron
ghd's two flagship irons agree on almost everything. The wide plate and the voltage row are the whole decision.
Updated September 2026 · Sawyer V.
Buy the Chronos if you have long or dense hair — it is the only one offered with a wide plate. Buy the Platinum+ if you travel or want a stated cord length, because ghd publishes universal voltage and 9 ft for it and publishes neither for the Chronos.
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What they share
More than most competing products from different brands. Both publish one fixed temperature of 365°F with no dial. Both publish floating ceramic plates. Both carry a three-year warranty, the longest iron warranty in our registry. Neither publishes a wattage or a weight.
That is not laziness on ghd’s part — it is a brand with a single coherent position applied consistently. Every ghd product we cover runs at 365°F, including their curling tools. Whether that position suits you is a separate question, argued in full on the Platinum+ review.
The published specifications
ghd Platinum+ against ghd Chronos, manufacturer figures only
| Specification | Platinum+ | Chronos |
|---|---|---|
| Temperature | One fixed — 365°F | One fixed — 365°F |
| Plates | Precision-milled floating high-gloss, 1 in | Floating ceramic, ultra-gloss; 1 in and wide |
| Wide-plate version | No | Yes |
| Hinge | Not specified | Re-engineered wishbone |
| Cord | 9 ft power cable | Not published |
| Voltage | Universal voltage | Not published |
| Warranty | 3 years | 3 years |
| Wattage | Not published | Not published |
| Weight | Not published | Not published |
| Attachments | None supplied | None supplied |
Seven ties. Three rows differ, and two of them are the decision.
Row one: the wide plate
Only the Chronos is offered wide, and this is the single most useful difference between them.
Plate width decides coverage per pass, and pass count is the term in the damage arithmetic you can actually reduce. On long or dense hair, a wide plate is the difference between finishing a section in one pass and taking two — which is a damage argument, not just a time one.
It matters even more on a fixed-temperature iron than on an adjustable one. When 365°F does not straighten a section, an adjustable iron lets you go up; a ghd leaves you with a repeat pass as your only option. A wide plate makes that first pass more likely to work, which partly repairs the one genuine weakness of the fixed-temperature design.
It is why the Chronos is a pick on the thick-hair page and the Platinum+ is the named skip there. The reasoning about width generally is on the plate size page.
Row two: the voltage
ghd publishes universal voltage for the Platinum+ and nothing at all for the Chronos.
On most specifications a blank row costs you information. Here it costs you the tool, because plugging a 120 V-only iron into a UK supply declared at 230 V — and legally permitted up to 253 V — destroys it. The numbers are on the UK page.
ghd clearly understands that the row matters: they publish universal voltage for the Platinum+ and for the Curve Thin, and they state plainly that the Helios dryer is not universal voltage. Leaving the Chronos blank is therefore not a house style, it is a gap. If you travel, the Platinum+ is the one that answers the question.
Row three: the cord
9 ft published for the Platinum+, nothing for the Chronos. A minor row that turns out to matter in bathrooms where the socket is not next to the mirror — and in the UK, where bathrooms often have no standard socket at all.
The hinge, and how much to make of it
ghd publishes a re-engineered wishbone hinge on the Chronos and specifies no hinge design on the Platinum+. It would be easy to read that as the Chronos being better built, and we would be careful about it.
What a hinge does on a floating-plate iron is hold the plates parallel under pressure. That matters more on a wide plate, which has more leverage to twist. So publishing a hinge redesign alongside a wide-plate option reads as engineering that follows from the wider plate, rather than as a general durability upgrade.
Both irons carry the same three-year warranty, which is ghd stating in binding terms that they expect the same service life from each. That is the number we would weigh rather than the hinge description.
Price per use, at 5 uses a week over 5 years
| What you pay | Cost per use | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|
| $30 | $0.02 | $6.00 |
| $60 | $0.05 | $12.00 |
| $100 | $0.08 | $20.00 |
| $150 | $0.12 | $30.00 |
| $200 | $0.15 | $40.00 |
| $300 | $0.23 | $60.00 |
| $400 | $0.31 | $80.00 |
| $500 | $0.38 | $100.00 |
5 uses a week for 5 years is 1300 uses. Both figures are stated assumptions, not measurements — halve the life and every cost per use doubles. We publish the ladder rather than a worked example for one specific product because a price we typed into a sentence would be wrong within a week.
Which to buy
- Long or dense hair: Chronos, wide plate. Fewer passes is the whole argument, and no other ghd offers it.
- You travel: Platinum+. Published universal voltage. This is not a close call and it is not worth gambling a flagship iron on.
- Fine or shoulder-length hair, at home: Platinum+. A 1 inch plate is right for you, and you get the cord and voltage rows for free.
- Bleached or double-processed hair: neither. Both are fixed at 365°F with nothing below. The nine-setting T3 SinglePass StyleMax is the tool.
- Sections that take three passes: neither. Look at flexing plates — Corrale versus Platinum+.
What we cannot tell you
We have not used either iron. Neither publishes a wattage or a weight, so we cannot tell you what they cost to run or how they feel in the hand, and we cannot compare the hinge designs because only one is described. Every figure above is from ghd’s own product pages.
The tools on this page
Prices come from the live price layer. Where none is available the button says so rather than showing a number we cannot stand behind.
ghd Chronos flat iron (1 inch plate)
The Platinum+ argument with a re-engineered hinge and a wide-plate option — same fixed 365°F, same three-year warranty, more plate choice.
ghd Platinum+ flat iron (1 inch plate)
One temperature, 365°F, no dial to get wrong — the strongest heat-discipline argument in the category, and the longest iron warranty here at three years.
Questions people actually ask
What is the difference between the ghd Chronos and the Platinum+?
Three published rows. The Chronos is offered with a wide plate and publishes a re-engineered hinge; the Platinum+ publishes universal voltage and a 9 ft cord. Temperature, warranty and plate type are identical.
Which ghd iron is better for thick hair?
The Chronos, bought in the wide-plate version. Wider plates cover more hair per pass, and on a fixed-temperature iron the first pass working is the only thing that keeps pass count down.
Which ghd iron can I take abroad?
The Platinum+. ghd publishes universal voltage for it and publishes no voltage rating at all for the Chronos, which is not something to assume either way.