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USBC was supposed to be the one port to rule them all. One cable for your phone,

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your laptop, your earbuds, your everything. And yet somehow, standing in

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front of a wall of chargers covered in watts and protocol names, you still have

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no idea which one to buy. Maybe you should just get the cheapest one, but

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will it start a fire in my house? Look, charger marketing is genuinely a mess.

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But buying the right charger really just comes down to five things. Let's break

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them down. Number one, plugging a huge charger into a small device will not

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blow it up. You're not crazy. This was a thing with older phone chargers. They

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were basically dumb. And kind of like me in my early 20s, they hadn't learned how

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to communicate. Instead, they pushed voltage and it was up to you to match

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them with the right device. USBA was

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actually a step in the right direction here. It standardized everything at 5

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volts. But it was a one-sizefits-all situation that limited performance.

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Modern USBC chargers are smart. They're more like me in my 30s. They've read

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Radical Acceptance by Terra Brock. The moment you plug something in, there's a

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conversation that happens because chargers are all built to the USB PD or

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power delivery standard. The charger offers a menu of voltages and the device

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picks what it wants. If the devices can't communicate at all and the

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handshake fails, everything falls back to the slowest, safest option. This

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actually makes buying a charger easier. now than it was in the past. Worst case,

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your device just charges slowly or not at all. The USB PD spec is just the

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baseline, though. If you've ever seen marketing terms like super vou from

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OnePlus or super fast charging from Samsung, those are proprietary

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extensions of the standard that allow the industry to innovate. And if you've

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ever wondered why most charging cables these days have USBC on either end

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rather than the old rectangular USBA. The negotiation between charger and

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device is part of the reason. USBA doesn't normally have the communication

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pins needed for that negotiation. Nor does it have the voltage and current

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capabilities of USBC. So when you do see

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it, it's with a slower charger. It's why you generally can't fast charge a laptop

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from a USBA port. Duh. So, what number

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on the box actually matters? Wattage.

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For charging one phone, get the highest number you can that's not higher than

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what your device can handle, because then you'd be paying for watts you can't

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use. You can find out your phone's max by heading to its Wikipedia page. Or if

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your phone is more obscure and doesn't have a Wikipedia page, like me, but

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somehow has a Wiki Feet page. Anyway, uh, check GSM Arena. When in doubt, a 30

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watt charger is probably fine for most people. again charging one phone. But

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nowadays there are lots of multiport chargers on the market and they add

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another layer of confusion. Though the box may say 100 watts, that's usually

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only on just one or some of the ports

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with the other ports being well less.

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Not only that, but plugging into multiple ports at once will cause the

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charger to renegotiate power, splitting it and potentially slowing your phone's

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charging speed. Now you're ready to buy

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a charging brick, but what about the cable between it and your device? Does

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it matter? We spoke with George Paparzos, who oversees battery tech at

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Qualcomm Technologies. >> It is very uh critical. Uh but and I

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think that's another example where consumers don't realize uh because the

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cables I mean most of them look the same. As a rule of thumb, the thicker

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the cable and the shorter the cable, the

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less lossy it is. So it it gives you

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more capability. Now the standard itself like for example USBD they have two

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categories of cables. They specify a 3

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cable which is the regular cable but then we also specify a firearm cable

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which the device and the accessory recognizes through an e-arker.

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>> Those Earkers are tiny chips hidden inside higherend cables. When you plug

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in the charger actually asks the cable what specifications it can handle. and

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the E-arker has the answer. If the cable can't answer properly, the charger

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assumes it's on the weaker side and limits the power to avoid overheating.

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So, if you're wondering why your 100 W charger is crawling with a brand new

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cable, the cable's probably lying about what it can do. But even a great cable

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and a great charger can still be catastrophically undermined by something

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most people never think about. And we'll get into that right after a word from

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Threat Locker can do to keep you and your team safe. And you can learn more about their zero trust approach with our

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link below. Even though USB PD is designed to be as safe as possible,

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chargers can absolutely still be

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dangerous when manufacturers cut corners and skip things like proper electrical

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isolation, accurate current limits, or real cable detection. That's when you

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can get overheating, unstable power, or in worst case scenarios, actual

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electrical failure. If a charger is suspiciously lightweight, runs unusually

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hot, or comes from a brand name you can't pronounce, that's your warning

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sign. But did you say cable detection a second ago? I did, and it's honestly

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pretty cool. A USBC charger, believe it or not, is actually off until

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something's plugged in. Inside the charger is a tiny pullup resistor

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connected to the configuration channel pins. Inside your phone or laptop is a

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pull down resistor. At the most basic level, when you plug the cable in, the

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charger detects the voltage drop caused by that pull down resistor, confirms the

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device is attached, and then turns the power on. This prevents sparks, protects

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the connector, and avoids exposed voltage. We've all been there. It also

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tells the charger and the cable which way you flipped the plug, which still

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feels like magic. The safety stuff brings us to the age-old question when

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buying a phone charger. Does the brand matter? Are Apple chargers better?

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Honestly, in some cases, yes. Apple chargers specifically are subject to

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extremely strict compliance standards. But you do have to pay for that

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reliability. The good news is reputable third-party brands often use very

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similar internal technology for less money. Really, the danger zone is the

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gas station special or bargain bin online charger that saves a few dollars

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by skipping safety components. A great example of what good charging tech looks

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like is GAN or gallium nitride chargers.

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For decades, chargers used silicon, which generates a lot of heat and

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requires bulky heat sinks to stay safe.

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GAN is a next-gen semiconductor that is much more efficient than silicon,

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meaning it can handle higher voltages in a smaller space and loses way less

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energy to heat. That's why you can now find a 100 W charger that fits in the

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palm of your hand. That said, sometimes these small chargers can thermal

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throttle, and if they do, they'll charge more slowly for a while. That's why

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Apple calls these 40 W dynamic power adapters with 60 watt max. They know it

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won't be at 60 watt all the time. And remember, charging is only half the

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story. Data transfer has its own mess of speed, standards, and future upgrades.

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So, if you want a better handle on how USB data actually works and where it's

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heading next, check out our video on USB data transfer. And if you'll excuse me,

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I had to take this.

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No, you can't keep the dog.