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A dozen USB chargers in the lab: Apple is very good, but not quite the best
- mhb 14y agoWould be nice to know how the adafruit charger does: http://adafruit.com/products/501 http://adafruit.com/products/501
- bryogenic 14y agoAlso the 2A, 4 port monoprice one: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?p_id=8856 http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?p_id=8856
- rhizome 14y agoI bought two for ~$3 apiece at Fry's a few months ago. One is OK, the other was and is DOA. The one that mostly works sometimes requires jiggling in the jack to make contact, but generally they are a garbage, F-, would not buy again product.
- ladyada 14y agoHi Rhizome, adafruit does not distribute the specific USB charger we carry at Frys - sorry to hear you had a bad experience with them but it was certainly not the same one from the adafruit shop the parent poster was referring to!
- rhizome 14y agoThis appears to be what I purchased, and it looks exactly the same: http://www.frys.com/product/6740515 http://www.frys.com/product/6740515
- makomk 14y agoJust because it looks the same doesn't mean it has the same internals, especially with cheap made-in-China kit.
- rhizome 14y agoWow, really? What if they're all made in China using the same enclosures, does that bring us back to the "check the UL code" method? I know I don't memorize UL codes, so that may be a nonstarter in at least a few situations.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- gjkood 14y agoHi Rhizome, I am not sure how much of an electronics hobbyist you are. But if you are into electronics hardware, you may have had a chance to stumble upon ladyada's store 'http://www.adafruit.com http://www.adafruit.com and maybe even took a look at her background at 'http://www.adafruit.com/about/ http://www.adafruit.com/about/. My best guess is she knows what she is talking about. As someone above mentioned, her run-of-the-mill customers are not your average Joe customer. I believe that she is meticulous about what she sells in here store and tests them out before she makes it available to her customers. She is not rebranding the products as hers. She is just assuring her customers that she is doing due diligence prior to selling it on her site. I like Fry's just like the next guy and they have great deals, but I don't expect to get high tech stuff there or necessarily high quality stuff. They are just another big box store but also catering to your average hobbyist. I don't know if the purchasing department there puts as much effort into checking out the products they sell. You got what you paid for at Fry's.
- justin66 14y agoI expect that even if you were that dedicated to ferreting out the best chargers, there's plenty of variation in quality when dealing with chargers that are manufactured in the hundreds of thousands and move through the supply chain very quickly. I've been very happy with my HP Touchpad chargers but that's not the universal experience.
- ladyada 14y agoI assure you that just because two adapters look the same do not have any relation to the insides. (After all, counterfeit Apple adapters look the same as genuine ones, but you wouldn't think they are the same on the inside after reading this article.) The black plug casing is a common molding style used by many factories - but its the electronics inside that count :) The best way to know if they are identical is to look for the UL certificate number, those are unique to each design. We have a photo of our label here http://www.adafruit.com/images/large/ID501label_LRG.jpg http://www.adafruit.com/images/large/ID501label_LRG.jpg
- rhizome 14y agoI can assure you that as a run-of-the-mill customer, I will likely never check a UL code. I don't know if you get your casings from the same place, putting your own electronics inside, but I feel that if you want to trade on your identity as a purveyor of quality products you're going to have to look at least a little different from bad products. To borrow and twist a line from Seinfeld, "Adjacent to trash, is trash." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKC5jjFkfgo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKC5jjFkfgo I did make the mistake, though, so sorry about that.
- sliverstorm 14y agoladyada does not manufacture that charger; the website offers it, along with other general-purpose knickknacks, to compliment the main offerings- DIY electronics kits. This last bit is significant- ladyada's run-of-the-mill customer is not going to be your standard Joe looking for a charger for his cell phone.
- vostrocity 14y agoI was traveling in China and picked up a charger that looks exactly the same from some street vendor. When it comes to cheap, no-name accessories, no one is going to spend money designing custom casing.
- ladyada 14y agoGood question! I test all the products in the adafruit shop for quality and functionality :) I tried out half a dozen 5v/1a adapters and this one was the winner - best performance and a very good price for UL listed. The most important points: It has the 'iDevice' resistors and has very good voltage regulation - extremely clean, no big voltage spikes. When loaded down 1A it stays around 5.2V, I actually pulled 1.5A and it was still above 5V. I opened a few up to look at the construction and found it well designed with good soldering, strain relief etc. In the product description I explain why its a 5.25V not 5V adapter - its perfect for high-current devices like the Raspberry Pi and we have thousands of customers who have happily used it for the Pi.
- rhplus 14y agoThis link just wouldn't have been quite as clickable: A dozen USB chargers in the lab: HP is the best.
- jrockway 14y agoUsing the A word and "good" in an article title is guaranteed karma.
- gnu8 14y agoIts an appeal to the Apple sycophants who troll this web site: "oh no who dares best my beloved Apple?!? I'd better click!"
- redcircle 14y agoWould you like a higher quality site? Belittling comments such as this, to a group of the users here, will not get us there.
- sliverstorm 14y agoIt certainly appears to have worked, after a fashion. A young article, front page... Of course, the real question is, who promoted it? The Apple sycophants, or the folks who wanted to rub it in their faces?
- protomyth 14y agoI'm not so sure about that. HP and USB aren't exactly in people's search list as frequently as Apple. Beyond that, I clicked wondering if Apple was selling a general USB charger and not an iPad / iPhone accessory.
- mseebach 14y agoIt's off-topic, but I've been trying to figure it out for a while: I have a two-port "Gear4" USB charger with swappable plugs, so it's great for travelling. However, my new work BlackBerry won't accept a charge from it, complaining about it being too low powered - however, the Gear4 charger says it's 2A, the BB charger is 750mA. Does anyone know what's the deal?
- rhizome 14y agoGiven that the company now appears to deal mostly in iPhone cases with zero USB chargers listed on their site, their technical claims and/or QC may be suspect.
- UnoriginalGuy 14y agoEveryone has decided it is a good idea to use non-standard USB chargers to deliver better than USB power to devices. So as a result the Asus charger won't charge an iPad above USB specs, and the reverse is also true. You might have been caught by this same problem.
- macleodan 14y agoThey probably aren't up to their ratings. Also, the USB cable may be too high resistance, causing a voltage drop.
- rogerbinns 14y agoThe charger has to signal that it is capable of providing more than the standard current. There are two ways this can be done - one is via the USB standard, and the other is the Apple way. Needless to say most chargers go the Apple way, so you should generally look for chargers that claim to not be compatible with Apple. Here is an example story of trying to find one: https://plus.google.com/117091380454742934025/posts/5suTrJrpbHF https://plus.google.com/117091380454742934025/posts/5suTrJrp... In some cases the chargers and devices have gone a third way. This is very typical for tablets as they need a lot more current in order to charge within a reasonable time frame. At that point many manufacturers have made up their own way of signalling the ability.
- philh 14y ago
- macleodan 14y agoI have looked at some cheap car USB power supplies. Griffin: http://mm0hai.net/blog/2012/09/30/Griffin-USB-Car-Charger.html http://mm0hai.net/blog/2012/09/30/Griffin-USB-Car-Charger.ht... Unbranded, common on ebay. http://mm0hai.net/blog/2012/08/01/Message-to-an-ebay-seller.html http://mm0hai.net/blog/2012/08/01/Message-to-an-ebay-seller.... They were both awful. I would be interested to know about a known good one.
- nicpottier 14y agoToo bad the Amazon Kindle charger isn't in the mix, it is my favorite just because it is so tiny and relatively high output. Would have liked to see same analysis for it.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jonknee 14y agoI just got a Kindle PaperWhite and it did not come with a charger, just a USB cable to plug into a computer for power.
- marquis 14y agoThe Kindle charger is sold separately, and you could probably get a much cheaper one than the $20 they are selling for as it's a standard micro USB port. My paperwhite USB is the same as my Logitec mouse and Android phone. Makes charging much easier as I keep them all on the same desk as I work.
- jonknee 14y agoYea, I would not have used one anyway and am happier having a cheaper Kindle. I think I have only charged it once, great battery life on that thing.
- Lagged2Death 14y agoI've got 3 USB chargers in the house, including a Kindle charger, and none of them inter-operate at all. Ridiculous.
- nicholassmith 14y agoOut of curiousity whereabouts are you based? I'm in the UK and have about 5 different USB chargers, and they all play nice with each other.
- acgourley 14y agoThe lesson here is that if you don't want to pay for an official apple charger, do not buy a counterfeit one just buy any name brand one with the right wattage rating.
- kmfrk 14y agoAnd even with Apple chargers you risk using a charger with the wrong wattage (iPad charger vs. iPhone/iPod IIRC).
- brigade 14y agoThe only risk you take in that scenario is that your device may not charge as fast as you expect (or at all, if in use.) Same with the 3 different wattages of MagSafe adapters.
- Moto7451 14y agoBut there will be no damage which is more important. My iPad simply slow charges (1A) on my old iPhone & my newer/current Samsung & LG 1A phone charger. Meanwhile my iPad charger works on all my devices - retired iPod Mini, my old iPhone 3G (now iAlarm Clock), Samsung Admire, LG Motion 4G, iPod Touch 7G. In the latter case, charging isn't any faster of course since the devices will only pull 500mA (Admire) or 1A. The only chargers that I have that won't charge my all of my modern iDevices are old ones meant for iPods (500mA, no signal on the data pins) and my old Belkin iPhone car charger doesn't work with my iPad (Probably only 500mA w/ signal for iPhones. I'd have to check). Another interesting tidbit: It appears that my car's Pioneer DEH 9400 head unit (aftermarket of course) seems to inform my devices that it can supply 1A of power through its two USB ports. This is the first time I've seen that outside of dedicated chargers and Macs (I assume of course that some PCs do this as well but I haven't seen one yet).
- RShiki 14y ago> This is the first time I've seen that outside of dedicated chargers and Macs (I assume of course that some PCs do this as well but I haven't seen one yet). My Asus motherboard can do that with the right software/driver installed and it seems that all products made by Asus these days support this. It's an optional install you can find in the Asus support website for your devices.
- GuiA 14y ago" Since the designers of the Apple charger went to a great deal of effort to build a high quality charger, I conclude they must not consider voltage sag worth worrying about. Or, more interestingly, maybe they built this sag as a feature for some reason. In any case, the chargers lose points on this." I'm not versed in the arcane arts of EE— could anyone give me a basic definition of voltage sag? And would there be any reason to build it as a feature in a charger?
- nostromo 14y agoIt's exactly what it sounds like: a short-term dip in voltage. I'm not sure why any end user would care about this, unless they are using a device with no battery.
- jopt 14y agoRight on. Perhaps the company we deride for not letting us remove the battery could be excused for not optimising for devices with no battery.
- kens 14y agoHi, the author here. I'm using voltage sag to describe how the voltage drops as the load increases. (This has nothing to do with the presence of a battery or not.) Chargers normally are designed to output a constant voltage until the charger hits maximum power. But with the iPhone charger, the voltage is 5.2 volts if there's no load, and steadily drops to 4.6 volts as the load increases. If a device is expecting 5 volts, this could cause problems. Also, charging times could increase since the voltage is lower. Generally, if the voltage drops under load like this, it's a sign of a poorly designed charger that doesn't regulate well. But since Apple's charger appears otherwise well-designed, it's a bit of a puzzle. One possibility is that maybe the exact voltage input to the iPhone doesn't matter, and the designers knowing this didn't care about the voltage sag. Another possibility is for some unknown reason they deliberately designed the charger this way.
- sliverstorm 14y agoIt's almost always a balance between cost of manufacture and performance. I would bet money it was not designed that way as a feature. The interesting points to remember here are: - USB specifies 5V, not the iPhone - Voltage drop across the iPhone's internal regulators and charging circuits are probably less than 0.5V - Most cell phone LiIon batteries are 3.7V So, presumably they made a charger that allows droop to 4.6V because this is a voltage still capable of charging the battery, yet also allows a less expensive charger design.
- rhizome 14y agoI'm pretty sure there is a guaranteed-success Kickstarter for a $10-20 clean-charging plug in this story.
- wib 14y agoYes. I've never given to a Kickstarter campaign but would totally contribute to this. Proprietary chargers feel like such a ripoff at ~$30-$50, but clearly the $5 generics are a bad buy, so what you're suggesting is a real opportunity.
- commandar 14y agoI bought up a half dozen Touchpad chargers when they were being cleared out for $5 a piece. I did it mainly because they were the cheapest 2A adapters that work with anything I'd come across, but it's good to know they're efficient and well-built as well.
- vostrocity 14y agoI did the same with Palm Pre/Pixi chargers. I'm disappointed they weren't included in these tests, but industrial design-wise, they are THE best I've seen. The same size as Apple iPhone chargers, but cylindrical with soft touch surface and folding prongs. You can still find some on Amazon, it's just hard to tell whether the seller will give you the correct, genuine ones. http://www.amazon.com/Palm-Wall-Adapter-Charger-Treo/dp/B002GQ9K5C/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1351377902&sr=8-8&keywords=palm+pre+charger http://www.amazon.com/Palm-Wall-Adapter-Charger-Treo/dp/B002...
- noonespecial 14y agoI loved the "Touchstone" inductive chargers. I bought a whole box of them and the backs that were supposed to go on Pre's (these have the receiver coil in them) just to use in projects. After fiddling with those awful 30 pin apple connectors, they feel like pure sci-fi.
- Tsts 14y agoIs it dangerous to use a high output power charger, like the HP TouchPad one, with a low consumption device, like a phone?
- afterburner 14y agoGood to know Monoprice makes a good product.
- vostrocity 14y agoOther than the fact that it's butt ugly and comes with an unwieldy loose cable.
- afterburner 14y agoThat's ok, there's plenty of other Monoprice chargers.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- adrr 14y agoI have a fake IPad charger, it barely charges my IPhone and can't charge the IPad at all. It was labelled as an Apple charger when I bought it for $10 and had good reviews.
- polyfractal 14y agoVery interesting review, I enjoyed the dissection and review of what most people don't even think about (wall chargers). On a non-technical note, Apple chargers should lose simply because of how goddamned large they are. They basically eat two spots on a power strip and are easily knocked out of wall sockets because of their weight.
- kalleboo 14y agoOne thing that always annoys me when Apple products take over the world is how they are limited to American constraints. Sony Ericsson made a brilliant charger that plugged into the wall and you could just stand your phone onto. Apple would never think of that since the American plug standard is too weak to carry the same weight a Schuko can. And now everyone has to copy Apple instead of innovating...
- SyneRyder 14y agoI find the Apple chargers ideal for international use, because they have interchangeable plug heads for different countries. When I'm traveling, I only need to take the chargers that I need, and swap the plugs as required. That seems to work better than buying 3rd party plug adaptors (which don't always grip well, sometimes causing the plug to fall out of the socket).
- tedunangst 14y agoIt's unclear to me how apple forced Sony Ericsson to stop selling a superior charger.
- micampe 14y agoNot everyone. http://www.bluelounge.com/products/minidock/ http://www.bluelounge.com/products/minidock/ http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Lifestyle-Outfitters-DLA49002-17/dp/B002VPDM2K http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Lifestyle-Outfitters-DLA49002-... http://store.griffintechnology.com/iphone/powerblock-2011 http://store.griffintechnology.com/iphone/powerblock-2011
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kalleboo 14y agoI got a nice charger from Buffalo (respected Japanese brand) that does a max of 4A (=can charge 2 iPads at once) and has 4 USB ports: 2 with the Apple power negotiation standard, and 2 with the Everyone Else/Android power negotiation standard. It'd be nice to see an even broader test
- kens 14y agoA lot of people have suggested additional chargers I should examine. To narrow it down, I've created a poll on the article page (upper left). If there's sufficient interest I'll take a look at your favorite charger, so cast your vote.
- nodrama 14y agowhat about noise? Audio noise. If it works, this is the next feature I'm interested in. For example, I have an HP laptop, and the charger is noisy.
- yooy123 14y agoUSB chargers? Try this one, I wish I could afford it. http://kdyworks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=59 http://kdyworks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=ar...
- yooy123 14y agoThis one is also nice http://www.ubergizmo.com/2009/07/cambrionix-49-port-usb-hub/ http://www.ubergizmo.com/2009/07/cambrionix-49-port-usb-hub/