Samsung put the last nail in the box that previously contained a charger

There was a time when I would have ventured into a device manufacturer because I dared to send a phone without a charger.

That time was yesterday. Then Apple was the poster boy for the idea – Apple with its good-two-shoe rhetoric about saving the environment while continuing to manufacture a range of its own cables and wireless chargers, one of which at least a new one power stone must buy.

Samsung does not have the problems. It’s been on USB-C and the Qi wireless standard for years, and you can use it any such cable and any charger from any reputable manufacturer to complement your Samsung phone. Heck, the same universal cables and chargers also work with laptops and tablets: you can use a MacBook or iPad charger to plug in a new Samsung phone, as long as it’s recent enough to use the universal port.

Even if you want to buy a new charger, you might not buy it from Samsung these days; While it dropped the price of its stand-alone USB-C charger from $ 35 to $ 20 to celebrate this occasion, companies like Anker and HyperJuice / Sanho manufacture small but powerful Gallium Nitride (GaN) chargers that you can carry in any pocket. can throw, not to mention the playing card-sized size with enough power and ports to charge a laptop, phone and tablet simultaneously.

Three old USB-A chargers next to a HyperJuice 100W combo charger with two USB-C and two USB-A ports.

Left: old and bushy. Right: new warmth.
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

I bought some of them, and I can recharge for the foreseeable future. Right now, most power bricks that come with a device are just a piece of junk, something I need to recycle or try to pawn a friend.

This was not always the case. I remember being grateful for the Samsung chargers that came with my Galaxy S6 and S7 because they were the best on the market – do you remember these tapered rectangular wall warts that protrude so ridiculously far?

Coincidentally, they were also powerful, adaptable fast chargers that worked perfectly for many devices, whether they needed to be charged fast or not. The Motorola TurboPower charger was pretty good in my opinion, but it only comes with the company’s most expensive phones, and the early USB-C versions have a fixed (non-removable) cable.

There are still arguments as to why smartphone companies should combine power bricks with their new devices, such as how there will always be people who have never owned a phone and do not have a charger. Many will also point out that these businesses do it for selfish reasons – they still charge the same amount or more for a phone while giving you less value in the box. (It’s also nice to see about the ambiguity of these businesses.) But as my colleague Dieter briefly said last June, I do not care: let’s get rid of 300,000 tonnes of e-waste and help the world’s remaining brand new USB-C smartphone buyers get their chargers elsewhere.

With Samsung, Xiaomi and Apple all running the charger, it’s effective no matter how you feel. According to market share, it is the number 1, 3 and 4 brands respectively, accounting for almost half of all smartphone shipments in the world, and in the United States it has been a duopoly of Samsung and Apple for years. But more importantly, the smartphone world has long gone where Apple and Samsung lead. The composite telephone powerstone is dead.

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