USBC was supposed to be the one port to rule them all. One cable for your phone,
your laptop, your earbuds, your everything. And yet somehow, standing in
front of a wall of chargers covered in watts and protocol names, you still have
no idea which one to buy. Maybe you should just get the cheapest one, but
will it start a fire in my house? Look, charger marketing is genuinely a mess.
But buying the right charger really just comes down to five things. Let's break
them down. Number one, plugging a huge charger into a small device will not
blow it up. You're not crazy. This was a thing with older phone chargers. They
were basically dumb. And kind of like me in my early 20s, they hadn't learned how
to communicate. Instead, they pushed voltage and it was up to you to match
them with the right device. USBA was
actually a step in the right direction here. It standardized everything at 5
volts. But it was a one-sizefits-all situation that limited performance.
Modern USBC chargers are smart. They're more like me in my 30s. They've read
Radical Acceptance by Terra Brock. The moment you plug something in, there's a
conversation that happens because chargers are all built to the USB PD or
power delivery standard. The charger offers a menu of voltages and the device
picks what it wants. If the devices can't communicate at all and the
handshake fails, everything falls back to the slowest, safest option. This
actually makes buying a charger easier. now than it was in the past. Worst case,
your device just charges slowly or not at all. The USB PD spec is just the
baseline, though. If you've ever seen marketing terms like super vou from
OnePlus or super fast charging from Samsung, those are proprietary
extensions of the standard that allow the industry to innovate. And if you've
ever wondered why most charging cables these days have USBC on either end
rather than the old rectangular USBA. The negotiation between charger and
device is part of the reason. USBA doesn't normally have the communication
pins needed for that negotiation. Nor does it have the voltage and current
capabilities of USBC. So when you do see
it, it's with a slower charger. It's why you generally can't fast charge a laptop
from a USBA port. Duh. So, what number
on the box actually matters? Wattage.
For charging one phone, get the highest number you can that's not higher than
what your device can handle, because then you'd be paying for watts you can't
use. You can find out your phone's max by heading to its Wikipedia page. Or if
your phone is more obscure and doesn't have a Wikipedia page, like me, but
somehow has a Wiki Feet page. Anyway, uh, check GSM Arena. When in doubt, a 30
watt charger is probably fine for most people. again charging one phone. But
nowadays there are lots of multiport chargers on the market and they add
another layer of confusion. Though the box may say 100 watts, that's usually
only on just one or some of the ports
with the other ports being well less.
Not only that, but plugging into multiple ports at once will cause the
charger to renegotiate power, splitting it and potentially slowing your phone's
charging speed. Now you're ready to buy
a charging brick, but what about the cable between it and your device? Does
it matter? We spoke with George Paparzos, who oversees battery tech at
Qualcomm Technologies. >> It is very uh critical. Uh but and I
think that's another example where consumers don't realize uh because the
cables I mean most of them look the same. As a rule of thumb, the thicker
the cable and the shorter the cable, the
less lossy it is. So it it gives you
more capability. Now the standard itself like for example USBD they have two
categories of cables. They specify a 3
cable which is the regular cable but then we also specify a firearm cable
which the device and the accessory recognizes through an e-arker.
>> Those Earkers are tiny chips hidden inside higherend cables. When you plug
in the charger actually asks the cable what specifications it can handle. and
the E-arker has the answer. If the cable can't answer properly, the charger
assumes it's on the weaker side and limits the power to avoid overheating.
So, if you're wondering why your 100 W charger is crawling with a brand new
cable, the cable's probably lying about what it can do. But even a great cable
and a great charger can still be catastrophically undermined by something
most people never think about. And we'll get into that right after a word from
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link below. Even though USB PD is designed to be as safe as possible,
chargers can absolutely still be
dangerous when manufacturers cut corners and skip things like proper electrical
isolation, accurate current limits, or real cable detection. That's when you
can get overheating, unstable power, or in worst case scenarios, actual
electrical failure. If a charger is suspiciously lightweight, runs unusually
hot, or comes from a brand name you can't pronounce, that's your warning
sign. But did you say cable detection a second ago? I did, and it's honestly
pretty cool. A USBC charger, believe it or not, is actually off until
something's plugged in. Inside the charger is a tiny pullup resistor
connected to the configuration channel pins. Inside your phone or laptop is a
pull down resistor. At the most basic level, when you plug the cable in, the
charger detects the voltage drop caused by that pull down resistor, confirms the
device is attached, and then turns the power on. This prevents sparks, protects
the connector, and avoids exposed voltage. We've all been there. It also
tells the charger and the cable which way you flipped the plug, which still
feels like magic. The safety stuff brings us to the age-old question when
buying a phone charger. Does the brand matter? Are Apple chargers better?
Honestly, in some cases, yes. Apple chargers specifically are subject to
extremely strict compliance standards. But you do have to pay for that
reliability. The good news is reputable third-party brands often use very
similar internal technology for less money. Really, the danger zone is the
gas station special or bargain bin online charger that saves a few dollars
by skipping safety components. A great example of what good charging tech looks
like is GAN or gallium nitride chargers.
For decades, chargers used silicon, which generates a lot of heat and
requires bulky heat sinks to stay safe.
GAN is a next-gen semiconductor that is much more efficient than silicon,
meaning it can handle higher voltages in a smaller space and loses way less
energy to heat. That's why you can now find a 100 W charger that fits in the
palm of your hand. That said, sometimes these small chargers can thermal
throttle, and if they do, they'll charge more slowly for a while. That's why
Apple calls these 40 W dynamic power adapters with 60 watt max. They know it
won't be at 60 watt all the time. And remember, charging is only half the
story. Data transfer has its own mess of speed, standards, and future upgrades.
So, if you want a better handle on how USB data actually works and where it's
heading next, check out our video on USB data transfer. And if you'll excuse me,
I had to take this.
No, you can't keep the dog.