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Author here. I've written a couple of articles about counterfeit chargers. You are correct; people cut every corner possible to make a counterfeit charger that
by kens 7y ago
Author here. I've written a couple of articles about counterfeit chargers. You are correct; people cut every corner possible to make a counterfeit charger that looks exactly like an Apple charger. (If you buy a $3 Apple charger on eBay, this is what you're getting.) The power quality of the knockoffs is awful. They also ignore safety, so the fake chargers occasionally kill people.
For point 2, I also wrote an article in the IEEE Spectrum about the history of switching power supplies and how we ended up with such tiny chargers.
Links: http://www.righto.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and-why-you.html http://www.righto.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and...
http://www.righto.com/2016/03/counterfeit-macbook-charger-teardown.html http://www.righto.com/2016/03/counterfeit-macbook-charger-te...
https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/a-half-century-ago-better-transistors-and-switching-regulators-revolutionized-the-design-of-computer-power-supplies https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/a-half-century-...
- lathiat 7y agoEven though Australian houses have full RCD protection for the entire house which would often help in these cases -- I still am terrified of these and pretty much just use official apple chargers from an Apple store or otherwise very reputable brands. The level of cheap chinese crazy is, well, crazy.
- supernova87a 7y agoThanks for those informative articles!
- aurea 7y agoHow can I know whether I have a real of fake charger?
- danieldk 7y agoDirectly order from Apple, Samsung, etc. Definitely do not trust anything that comes off Amazon or eBay.
- aurea 7y agoYes, but what if I already have a charger and I don't know where it came from?
- danieldk 7y agoIt is probably hard to say, from the outside they often look legit. I have seen one once, but it became more apparent when we compared it to a genuine charger (usually the print is off in some way). Since counterfeit chargers typically have fewer components, apparently weighting the charger can also help finding counterfeits: https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/blog/how-to-spot-a-fake-apple-charger/ https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/blog/how-to-spot-a-... Of course, it's probably not beyond them to add some weight to make you believe it is real. I guess if you have the right tools, you could also measure output quality.
- lloeki 7y agoThey do add weight (and go through the trouble of implementing ring structures to fake writes) https://youtu.be/g8ovFkd8myE https://youtu.be/g8ovFkd8myE
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- PascLeRasc 7y agoAnecdata: My A1265 charger weighs 23g and my A1385 weighs 25g. This article shows how to tell between an authentic A1265 and at least one fake one: https://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html https://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-a...
- thesmok 7y agoIn my limited experience, counterfeit iPhone chargers do not have a serial number printed inside the USB connector. Real ones do have it. I've found this picture that shows they've started printing a "serial number" on the fake ones too https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/243541/how-to-differentiate-original-and-fake-apple-5w-usb-eu-power-adapter-a1400-md8 https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/243541/how-to-diff...
- BrianHenryIE 7y agoI threw out all my cheap chargers after reading your post years ago and have shared it many times, thank you.