The chargers present within our smartphone bundles also deserve our attention. Taking care of your chargers is as important as taking care of your smartphone. It’s generally observed that many people settle for a third-party charger that costs less, which can prove to be detrimental to your smartphone in most cases. A generic, 3rd party and cheaply priced charger can potentially cause irreparable damage to your mobile device and shorten the life span of your battery completely.
Cheap 3rd Party Chargers Are a No-No
Why is using cheap 3rd party chargers for your smartphone and tablets unsafe? Third party / local chargers are unregulated in both quality and safety standards, which can end up being a problem in the longer run. You will obviously not be able to recognize the faults immediately, since they will take some time to appear and when they do appear, chances are that they’ve already done their deed in both small and significant ways, negatively affecting the future experience on your smartphone.
How To Detect The Warning Signs?
When you have your smartphone plugged into a third party charger, you will find that most of the time, the screen is unresponsive to the gestures that you are applying on it. While most users will believe that this is nothing more than a fault in the mobile device, they should be aware that this calls for a replacement of the charger as soon as possible. Another scenario where you will find that the charger has done damage is when your smartphone restarts on its own spontaneously.
Sure, smartphones do have a tendency to restart on their accord due to software issues as well, but here, the frequency of these random restarts will have increased to an all-time high. You will also notice that the smartphone battery is no longer giving you sufficient battery time, signifying that the charger has done more than its fair share of damage.
Why Does This Take Place?
This is due to the irregularities of the voltage ratings and the voltage required by modern day smartphones and tablets. Mobile devices normally require between 3.5-5V. Any more than this and end up inflicting irreparable damage to the mobile device.
On the other hand, we have the issue of current. The amount of current consumed by the smartphone does not have any adverse effect on the handset because it will consume the recommended amount. Having a charger that delivers more current is actually a good thing since the smartphone’s battery will be able to charge faster, even reaching 100 percent in a shorter period of time.
Taking care of your chargers is as important as taking care of your smartphone.
With third-party chargers, there is also the issue of genuineness. Even though cheap 3rd party chargers might have listed the recommended voltage on its backside, which should theoretically play well with your smartphone, there’s no guarantee to know if they are correctly stated. To make them cheaper, the manufacturers of these cheap chargers opt not have voltage/current regulation electronics or even if they do use them, they aren’t reliable enough.
We hope that people don’t opt for cheap 3rd party chargers for their mobile devices. A smartphone or tab happens to be a very expensive investment. Investing in a highly reliable and genuine charger can prolong the effective life what happens to be your most indispensable gadget.
” Having a charger that delivers more current is actually a good thing
since the smartphone’s battery will be able to charge faster, even
reaching 100 percent in a shorter period of time ”
How can you support that?
“On most chargers you’ll find the voltage listed somewhere on the power brick. Voltage is what pulls energy into the device. If the voltage is too high, you might end up shorting out your devices because you’ll overload the circuits. For mobile phones and other mobile devices like the Kindle that charge with USB, the voltage is typically 5V. A laptop charger might be as high as 20V or 25V. You can usually find the voltage your device needs on the device itself, on the battery, or if all else fails, on the manufacturer’s web site. You’ll almost always find the voltage supplied by your charger on the charger itself. You want the the voltage on your device to match the voltage provided by the charger.”
“Likewise, amperage is just as important. Amps are the current that’s supplied to your device. Think of it like a river, and the amperage is how fast that river is. Amps are usually listed on your power supply as something like, 2.7A or 1A. This regulates how much power flows through from the power supply to your device. The amperage listed on your power supply needs to match or exceed the amperage required by your device.”
You can visit this link in order to find out more. http://lifehacker.com/does-it-matter-which-charger-i-use-922783980
but in the mean time it also reduces battery life.
Not necessarily. It depends on the circuitry of the charger as well. Also you have to take into account the battery type as well.
suggest any good charger for smartphone as wel as for mifi devices as well.
The one which ships with your phone… or any other good phone.. The ones available in Pakistani market are all crap..
Third party chargers include from brands like USAMS or Fshang.
Get Oppo chager from market. These are of really good quality. Otherwise, use any other USB charger available at home.
Or go to Q-mobile service center and ask them to give you 5v 1A USB charger. That will work for any Mifi or wingle and smartphones.
You should write an article on Best Seller 3rd Chargers & batteries in Pakistan.
That’s a very good suggestion. Will do
The author should have taken some advice from an electronic expert before posting this. A charger with higher current won’t charge your battery faster unless the phone support high current. For example galaxy s2 is set to take a max of 650m current, no matter the charger is 1 or 2 ampere. If you want to know how much current your phone takes, install “ampere” from playstore
Ampere is a software, and will not tell the most accurate current draw. Any software that is used for reading results is going to be inaccurate. Also, I have tested this myself, using an 1A charger and then a 2A charger on my smartphone. The smartphone charges much faster on the 2A charger. And you don’t need to be an electronic expert, you just need to have the correct information.
> Ampere is a software
uh…
WOW. Talk about having correct information and “Ampere is a software” in one paragraph :D
In the end it all depends on the smartphone’s total current intake.
Good work Omar Sohail, keep it up with articles.
Nice info, written for Layman.
But if the manufacturer decides to place power flow, i.e. current flow circuitry inside the charger rather than phone, then the phone will suffer badly from high current input.
I am just trying to get clear that can it be generalized that the high current adapter WILL NOT damage the phone?
(It will be true if all manufacturers do put current control circuit inside phone).
This used to be an issue, but the problems have been reduced thanks to all chargers running at a universal voltage. The problem arises when manufacturers use poor circuitry in their smartphones.
Correction: Lithium ion and polymer batteries have built-in charge limiting circuit that does not allow charging battery above a specific rate. So, it does not matter if you put your smartphone on 5V & 3A, 4A USB charger. Charging speed will remain the same.
but it will matter if you put a 5v 0.3 amp charger. a higher value can
give you required (max) value but lower cant. most of chargers available
in market are between 1-2 amp.My Xperia Z3 comes with 1.5 amp charger
but when I but a 2amp samsung charger Xperia Charged faster. I am a
Mobile Technician and know how things work internally.
Yes. It will matter. It’s a common sense thing.
Besides your phone supports charging at 2A. Not faster than that. Your phone won’t except 2.5A charge current.
Yes, I also dont agree with the statement.
The smartphone chargers rated at 2.0A charges faster, but that is good for higher mAh ratings, for e.g. 3000-4000mAh or tablets with even higher mAh
1. Good thing you must always keep your charger with you.
2. Don’t rely on car chargers
3. Check the voltage levels with a multimeter (seems less common but your device is more expensive than a DMM, may be ~1-2% of the price of a phone)
4. When using a PC/Laptop, attach your phone to that. It has very slow charging, but atleast you won’t need charging.
5. Don’t let your batteries to 10-20%. Charge it every now and then to save charging cycles
6. Fast charging is recommended, only in the sense that it is not heating up the battery and mobile phone’s hardware (My S4 original battery got pregnant, though it happened once only but it lifted the front screen panel a bit up. can you believe it !)
“BatteryBot Pro” is the best choice to check accuracy of chargers.
Please publish an article on the best & genuine Solar Power Banks available in Pakistan!
Max amount of current that mobile devices can accept is 2.1A. I have yet to see a smartphone charger provide higher current than this.