Phone charger designed for specific phone?

[slayer202]

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10833&cs_id=1083301&p_id=6152&seq=1&format=2

The description says "This charger is specifically designed to charge the Motorola RAZR2 phones."

is this bullshit? I know it will work on other phones, but is there any even minor difference or no?

 

[akugami]

It's a micro USB based charger. It should work on any and all phones that use micro USB. Aside from quality control, there should be zero differences between this and any other micro USB charger.

 

[QueBert]

It's a micro USB based charger. It should work on any and all phones that use micro USB. Aside from quality control, there should be zero differences between this and any other micro USB charger.

some cables are different, I don't know what makes them different. But I know when I had my BB Pearl if I tried to use my digital cameras USB cable the BB's screen would say something about "insufficient power to charge the phone" the cable worked fine with my camera and a few other devices which had the same connector. To this day I don't understand it, but there was something different in the BB where not all cables would work with it.

 

[slayer202]

I guess chances are its nothing to worry about. For $3 I'll give it a shot

thanks guys

 

[akugami]

Sometimes companies would pull shenanigans with their chargers or the phones themselves. Apple, for one, does this and is a reason non-Apple licensed chargers may be slower than an Apple branded one.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

ive had problems with non specific chargers as well. i bought one that was a physical fit for my bb tour and i plugged it in and the next day my bb was still dead, so it hadnt charged at all. i then used my bb brand one and it worked fine. can a charger actually ruin a battery?

 

[Goi]

The only problems might be the gauge of the power cable. USB 2.0 cables have a power wire and a pair of differential USB signal wires. For charging, the power wire is important. A high gauge wire such as 28AWG might not provide enough current, hence you may get a "insufficient power to charge the phone" message. The problem is exacerbated if it's a USB data cable that's plugged into a USB port. The USB port rightfully only supplies 500mA (though many will supply more when asked of it). In this case it also depends on your USB controller, motherboard, and PSU among other things.

 

[s44]

The only problems might be the gauge of the power cable.

The USB port rightfully only supplies 500mA (though many will supply more when asked of it).

Nope. USB can and does supply way more than 500mA when the connection is identified as being to a charger by shorting the two data lines. A lot of no-name chargers, particularly car chargers -- including the Monoprice generic ones, IIRC, though I don't know about this Motorola specific model -- fail to do this, causing the phone to restrict current intake to a wimpy 500mA that won't even keep up with GPS drain.

The other problem smartphone owners have is that not all car lighter systems can actually deliver 1A...