Now that smartphones are not being shipped with chargers, you have to choose your own new one when your existing charger dies from old age or is obsolete. We’re here to help you demystify the different charging standards, cable types, and brand-specific terminology. Whether it's a type c charger or a wireless charger you decide on, you will now be able to choose with confidence.

What About Watts?

First things first, you need to know what your watts are. In electrical gobbledygook, a watt is “the unit of electrical power equal to one ampere under the pressure of one volt” (thank you NZ Electrical Authority). All you need to do is look at your smartphone's device user manual.  It will most likely state something between 18W (18 Watts) and 80W. 

There are chargers on the market, like Xiaomi, that push out 120W to 200W super fast charging. Daniel Desjarlais, Xiaomi's head of communications, publicly announced that the high wattage of the charger will deplete your battery capacity by twenty per cent over about two years but that the twenty per cent is close to normal degradation. The challenge is that it should not be left plugged into the phone overnight or battery degradation will occur faster. Use a lower-wattage charger for overnight charging. 

What Is The Charging Protocol?

Moving on, read up about the charging protocol required by your smartphone. Does it require proprietary charging or does it have universal standards? If proprietary then you can’t use other brands of chargers. Universal means you can use third-party chargers.

Multi-Device Charging

If you have a hoard of digital items that need charging up, using a single charger can neaten up your space a bit. You must, however, check that there is a little more than the necessary watts per outlet for each device per port and that each port has the right charging protocol.

What About Fast Charging?

Some smartphones flash up a notification to you saying “fast charging” or “rapid charging” but, interestingly, that doesn’t mean it’s true… The Pixel 6 (Google) always says it's charging rapidly whether you plugged into an ox-cart 9 Watt charger or a solid 30 Watts. Go figure.

What About USB-C?

A USB-C or type C charger is a versatile charger. It will power up headphones, wireless buds, tabs and laptops.

Generally, smartphones have a wattage range between eighteen and one hundred and twenty. Tablets and similar devices are around forty-five watts and new laptops come with 240 watts charging capacity over USB-C cables. On the extreme opposite end, little gadgets are quite happy with a ten-watt charger.

The Three Smartphone Charging Categories

Universal — USB connections are the most popular USB-C charging standard.

Proprietary — These are Original Equipment Manufacturer’s (OEM) charging standards. They supply higher speeds than USB. Warranties are subject to using OEM accessories.

Legacy — There are some older standards around in the market which are used by lower-powered gadgets and older phones. Note: They are being phased out. 

Conclusion

To simplify the above, what you need is to read up the wattage for your device and the charging standard and match it to a charger.

Contact us today If you need help choosing between a type c charger or another!