Sensible website for phone chargers (AC adapters)?

D

DaRuSsIaMaN

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
Messages
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Does anyone know of a retailer selling AC adapters that actually lists the specs, for non-retarded people? I'm getting extremely frustrated and want to yell at my screen... I try to shop for a charger for my phone, and so far most offerings don't list the current and voltage output! How f***ing idiotic is that?? The most relevant information about a charger is how much current and voltage it produces. Duhhh. I'm so mad. Amazon obviously is a shit-show. No hope there. I came across a site specifically for everything related to phones: cellularoutfitter.com. They also don't list the specs! Wtf is wrong with humanity? :mad: o_O

I guess I found one charger on Newegg that would work, kinda. But I'm hoping for more options.
 
I am forever detailing specs of chargers in my store, when ppl ask. I get customers come in and ask "do you have a charger", and I be like "what ampage, what gauage", and they be like "WTF".

They might have converted to the micro usb standard, but they sure as fuck dont tell you the actual specs and what they're good for.

Tell me, what phone/device are you chasing a charger for, and it possible, whats the symptoms of your charging problems?
 
How often does someone need to get a new charger? I mean I can understand wanting to have more than one (one at home, one at the office, one for the car, etc as needed or even required) but with the abundance of USB ports in today's world (literally) I can't imagine not being able to charge most anywhere. Now, having said that, I don't buy cheap chargers, I only use brand name models from BlackBerry, Motorola, LG, Samsung, and even Apple (I have several of their 10W 2.1A iPad chargers purchased at a thrift store for $3 each).

As far as buying online from Amazon you have to realize that in many respects Amazon is just being a listing service for resellers more than anything else, and since there's apparently a huge market for cheap Chinese shit in terms of low quality AC chargers for USB capable devices then you're going to have to dig through the piles of cheap Chinese shit to find anything that might be worth the trouble.

I gave up trying to deal with cheap shit years ago and I just spend what it takes to get the good stuff, never been an issue for me personally. I have a BlackBerry 1A charger and microUSB cable that I keep in my cargo pants basically 24/7 just in case I have need of it wherever I might travel as well as a 2500 mAh external battery I got for $4 at a clearance sale at OfficeMax last year, works fine.

For general purposes, any name brand charger (from the manufacturers I mentioned above) will work in most any situation; if you need something more specific like a charger that's QuickCharge capable you're going to be looking at a lot more money for one. I had a Droid Turbo recently but the original owner "lost" the QuickCharger (never lost a charger or battery or smartphone in my life for that matter) and it was around $22 to get a factory Motorola one since I wasn't going to trust it with anything else, eventually sold the phone + that charger for a pretty nice profit so it didn't cost me anything in the long run.

But to find the good stuff you've got to spend the time to find it, unfortunately. The markets are flooded with cheap Chinese shit (yes I repeat it frequently) and it's just noise of a sort - the good stuff is out there and yes it does come at a price premium over that cheap Chinese shit (last time I swear). :D
 
While this above is true regarding shit products from China, I can personally say for the past couple years LG OEM 1.8A chargers continue to drop dead after not long and recently i see Apple recalling some chargers as they cause electric shock.

Much like buying a power supply for a PC, but only much, much more ambiguous. It's a rarity to see any advertised, specialized chargers, and I would expect a massive premium if you did.

I have shit loads of Sammy chargers still going hard, and even their 0.7A chargers for their low tier phones do better to charge my phones then some 2.4A chinese shit I am getting. Thier latest adaptive chargers are exceptional but they are yet to prove the test of time to me.

Recently I've been stocking a brand called Dolphin as they are offering 12 months warranty and I haven't had a return since December. They come with dual ports, one 1A for lower tier devices, and one 2.1A for high end.
 
You don't see them because they don't matter much. With LiPo batteries you need charging protection circuits which limits the amp pull and will constantly check the voltage of the battery to prevent over charge. If your phone has a 1a charge limit it won't matter if you hook it up to a 5a charger, the charging circuit will only take 1a.

And it's always better to get better built chargers, not much can go wrong with the internals but QC gets much better and plus you get better power filtration on the dc output.
 
Trimlock said:
You don't see them because they don't matter much. With LiPo batteries you need charging protection circuits which limits the amp pull and will constantly check the voltage of the battery to prevent over charge. If your phone has a 1a charge limit it won't matter if you hook it up to a 5a charger, the charging circuit will only take 1a.

And it's always better to get better built chargers, not much can go wrong with the internals but QC gets much better and plus you get better power filtration on the dc output.
Click to expand...

Good point. Another thing I have noticed, sometimes if I use a standard 0.7A charger on some phones that usually come with a higher rated one, it seems to be good for the battery. It takes a bit longer to charge by the seems, but a few phones and tablets I've come across, after having it on one seem to have better battery performance for the duration of the charge. Is this placebo or good practice?
 
SsmB_92 said:
Good point. Another thing I have noticed, sometimes if I use a standard 0.7A charger on some phones that usually come with a higher rated one, it seems to be good for the battery. It takes a bit longer to charge by the seems, but a few phones and tablets I've come across, after having it on one seem to have better battery performance for the duration of the charge. Is this placebo or good practice?
Click to expand...

Theres actually quite a bit to back this line of thinking up. While not trickle charging, lower amp rate of charging can prevent the battery from heating up, which results in healthy charging. It also prevents the charging circuit from heating up causing possible voltage reading errors (That's if you use a super cheap IC). But you have to consider that the chargers with the max rated amperage are built with safe charging consideration, not to include Quick Charging chargers.

What you DON'T want to happen is to have irregular voltage to be supplied, where the power filtration on the output matters and proper gauge of power coords. Apple for example, takes that the most serious in their chargers, they have some seriously high quality wall chargers.
 
Trimlock said:
Theres actually quite a bit to back this line of thinking up. While not trickle charging, lower amp rate of charging can prevent the battery from heating up, which results in healthy charging. It also prevents the charging circuit from heating up causing possible voltage reading errors (That's if you use a super cheap IC). But you have to consider that the chargers with the max rated amperage are built with safe charging consideration, not to include Quick Charging chargers.

What you DON'T want to happen is to have irregular voltage to be supplied, where the power filtration on the output matters and proper gauge of power coords. Apple for example, takes that the most serious in their chargers, they have some seriously high quality wall chargers.
Click to expand...

Thats got me curious about the QC chargers now, I'll have to have a read on those. I have a Note 5 and its charger is rated at 5v 2A/9v 1.67A.

These days I've been stocking original Samsung cables, I had a bunch of bulk 10c cables and knock off Samsung cables, and I had a lot of returns on those and in one instance one was partially melted around the crimping. I get a number of people these days also specifically looking for original cords too so I think people are becoming more aware. Now only if they start realizing this applies to HDMI cords too lol, I've been trying really hard to educate people that they dont need spend $200 on a 2m 26ga platinum tipped cable just to hook up thier blu ray players.... Let alone at all.
 
SsmB_92 said:
Thats got me curious about the QC chargers now, I'll have to have a read on those. I have a Note 5 and its charger is rated at 5v 2A/9v 1.67A.

These days I've been stocking original Samsung cables, I had a bunch of bulk 10c cables and knock off Samsung cables, and I had a lot of returns on those and in one instance one was partially melted around the crimping. I get a number of people these days also specifically looking for original cords too so I think people are becoming more aware. Now only if they start realizing this applies to HDMI cords too lol, I've been trying really hard to educate people that they dont need spend $200 on a 2m 26ga platinum tipped cable just to hook up thier blu ray players.... Let alone at all.
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I'm not a huge fan of QC's but I do like the idea behind them. If they can prevent over voltage and the heat down to barely warm then they should be fine.

lol I hear you on the cables, my wife bought a Lightning cable off of amazon for about $3 and one of the ends melted, nearly yelled at her for doing that to her 6S. Samsung has the best cables, their cables are probably rated at a full 5a with some pretty decent shielding. Motorola used to ship the best cables (a bit short) but they stopped giving us awesome chargers when they were sold off.
 
SsmB_92 said:
I am forever detailing specs of chargers in my store, when ppl ask. I get customers come in and ask "do you have a charger", and I be like "what ampage, what gauage", and they be like "WTF".

They might have converted to the micro usb standard, but they sure as fuck dont tell you the actual specs and what they're good for.

Tell me, what phone/device are you chasing a charger for, and it possible, whats the symptoms of your charging problems?
Click to expand...


SsmB_92, you have your own store? That's cool.

In answer to your question, I have a Droid Mini. It came with a 5.1 V, 850 mA charger. I picked up some random additional ones from Amazon but it turns out they're too low current. They're like 500 mA, so charging is way too slow! Also, they all came with shorter and thicker, stiffer usb cables. The cable is so stiff that when I plug the charger into the power strip lying on the floor under/beside my desk, and set down my phone on the desk surface, the micro usb end often won't stay in the phone because there's so much tension in the cable. The original charger I got with the device is great in all respects. The cable is longer and not too stiff, and the charging time is fine.

I realize, of course, that the cable is a separate issue since I can buy it separately... but again, I can't really know how it will be until I receive the order and get to try it out in my hands.

Any suggestions? Thanks!
 
You can solve a lot of problems (if you have an open wall outlet) with one of these:

********** 34W DCX-4U 6.8A 4-Port Portable Travel Wall USB Charger with Foldable Plug for iPhone 6s / 6 / 6 plus, iPad Air 2 / mini 3, Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge / Note 5, HTC M9, Nexus and More - White - Newegg.com

or if you want to daisy chain off of a surge:

********** 50W 6 Port Desktop USB Charger for6s/6/6 Plus, iPad Air 2/mini 3, Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge, Nexus, HTC M9, LG G3, Sony Z3, Motorola, Nokia and More - Black (DCAP-6S) - Newegg.com

You don't have to stay with **********, but I've taken apart some of their chargers and they are a pretty high quality USB charger company.
 
DaRuSsIaMaN said:
SsmB_92, you have your own store? That's cool.

In answer to your question, I have a Droid Mini. It came with a 5.1 V, 850 mA charger. I picked up some random additional ones from Amazon but it turns out they're too low current. They're like 500 mA, so charging is way too slow! Also, they all came with shorter and thicker, stiffer usb cables. The cable is so stiff that when I plug the charger into the power strip lying on the floor under/beside my desk, and set down my phone on the desk surface, the micro usb end often won't stay in the phone because there's so much tension in the cable. The original charger I got with the device is great in all respects. The cable is longer and not too stiff, and the charging time is fine.

I realize, of course, that the cable is a separate issue since I can buy it separately... but again, I can't really know how it will be until I receive the order and get to try it out in my hands.

Any suggestions? Thanks!
Click to expand...

To be fair I don't own the store yet, they've offered it to me for $30k, basically apart from ordering cases for phones in from them, I've been doing everything on the side myself. Last week they sent me some refurb Iphone 5 screens, quickly dumped em and bought a bunch from China. They have a few stores, but they've gotten lazy, one guy in a southern store purchased it and now makes a comfortable 1900-2500 a week, which is about accurate.

Back on topic lol, funny thing is they sell these super thick, bendable/moldable cables that can be used as stands and what not. Fairly a joke IMO. Just because they used thick plastic, doesn't mean the gauge of the copper or the thickness quality of the shielding will be that great, in fact as far as those bendy ones are concerned I'd be inclined to think that they aren't cos it would help them to be so bendy. As a consumer with no real way of knowing what the quality of the cable is going to be like, word of mouth or good marketing is all you have to go on. For the regular Joe, i now recommend buying the brand name cable, if you want to make the most secure purchase possible.

For your Droid Mini, there are tonnes lower end mobiles that come with 5.1v 0.7-1.0A chargers, so theee is plenty of OEM chargers around and whatnot. Those deals Trimlock just posted look great, I'll be looking at those Oricos for the shop tomorrow, I see they are half price!
 
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Anker and Aukey. I trust those two brands. Their 18 month warranties come in handy without having some ridiculous hassle to get things replaced. And, yes, I've replaced multiple items from Anker and Aukey. And I would highly recommend them base on the warranty service.
 
SsmB_92 said:
For your Droid Mini, there are tonnes lower end mobiles that come with 5.1v 0.7-1.0A chargers, so theee is plenty of OEM chargers around and whatnot.
Click to expand...

Yes... But, again, the point of my thread was that I was hoping there's a retailer anyone knows of that actually lists these specs, and makes it easy to shop, instead of having to dig through pages of non-informative results on Amazon.
 
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Trimlock said:
You can solve a lot of problems (if you have an open wall outlet) with one of these:

********** 34W DCX-4U 6.8A 4-Port Portable Travel Wall USB Charger with Foldable Plug for iPhone 6s / 6 / 6 plus, iPad Air 2 / mini 3, Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge / Note 5, HTC M9, Nexus and More - White - Newegg.com

or if you want to daisy chain off of a surge:

********** 50W 6 Port Desktop USB Charger for6s/6/6 Plus, iPad Air 2/mini 3, Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge, Nexus, HTC M9, LG G3, Sony Z3, Motorola, Nokia and More - Black (DCAP-6S) - Newegg.com

You don't have to stay with **********, but I've taken apart some of their chargers and they are a pretty high quality USB charger company.
Click to expand...


Am I missing something? Both of these appear to provide up to 5 V. However, my charger is 5.1 V. So I believe these wouldn't work for me. Right?
 
I do agree that Aukey and Anker are great brands for charging supplies, but I see that no one is talking about the usb cable itself.

edit: Re reading the thread shows 26ga Usb cables were mentioned. I believe this is the main problem of "chargers not giving full power" as cables can't deliver the amps.

my source for cables (monoprice) does a great job of listing the wire gauge specs for their cables.
 
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