Hello all,
So I just bought a new charger (just a wall charger) and now when I plug my TB in, the screen does not respond to anything! I have to take the plug out to work my screen. It is completely unresponsive (regardless of where I'm at on the screen) while charging. As soon as I unplug it, it's fine.
Any ideas?
Where did you buy the charger from? Some crappy no-name/ebay/cheap chargers do that because they are crap. I had bought a cheap charger for my HTC Touch Pro 2 and that same thing happened, used the regular charger, no problems at all.
I know when I used the charger and cable that came with the thunderbolt, it used to become laggy or less responsive. Not terrible, but I could notice it. It was like all the memory was tied up. It doesn't do it anymore though. I rarely use the original cable and charger anyways.
g00s3y said:
Where did you buy the charger from? Some crappy no-name/ebay/cheap chargers do that because they are crap. I had bought a cheap charger for my HTC Touch Pro 2 and that same thing happened, used the regular charger, no problems at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed. The cheap $1.00 chargers may also harm your battery.
daniel178 said:
Hello all,
So I just bought a new charger (just a wall charger) and now when I plug my TB in, the screen does not respond to anything! I have to take the plug out to work my screen. It is completely unresponsive (regardless of where I'm at on the screen) while charging. As soon as I unplug it, it's fine.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Today I tried to charge my phone at work using my original.al charger that I always use and while it was plugged in, the screen wouldn't respond at all. I thought the phone was the problem but I later troubleshot it to low voltage from the extension cord, not my charger.
There are in fact quite a few micro-usb chargers that cause the screen to become unresponsive when plugged in.. This doesn't necessarily mean that the charger is crap, but it's best to use your manufacturer-approved (oem) chargers whenever possible. I work in wireless, and although our supplier is reputable, their generic chargers don't work well with the Atrix & a few other smartphones. I use them only when necessary, but do your phone a favor & stick to manufacturer chargers.
I had this problem, when I use a properly grounded surge protector the problem doesn't happen any more. It also happens to me when I charge out of my old macbook pro which tends to have a 'staticy' feel to it.
zoso28 said:
There are in fact quite a few micro-usb chargers that cause the screen to become unresponsive when plugged in.. This doesn't necessarily mean that the charger is crap, but it's best to use your manufacturer-approved (oem) chargers whenever possible...
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Click to collapse
You're two months late with your incorrect post. There's a well defined standard for USB chargers, which the TB follows. Non-OEM ones work every bit as well as the HTC one as long as they, too, follow the standard and provide clean power.
mike.s said:
You're two months late with your incorrect post. There's a well defined standard for USB chargers, which the TB follows. Non-OEM ones work every bit as well as the HTC one as long as they, too, follow the standard and provide clean power.
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Sorry my timing bothered you I was just browsing around for info about the touchscreen issues i've seen. I'm well aware of the standard, 5 +/- 0.25 volts 500–900 mA, and they all seem to charge perfectly well but certain phone/charger combos cause some screens to lag & I just wondered why. For example the motorola adapters all seem to be 5.1 volts @ 850mA, whereas samsung adapters are 5.0 volts @ 700 mA, and the samsungs charge fine on our standard 5/500's while the moto's lag.
zoso28 said:
SI'm well aware of the standard, 5 +/- 0.25 volts 500–900 mA, and they all seem to charge perfectly well but certain phone/charger combos cause some screens to lag & I just wondered why. For example the motorola adapters all seem to be 5.1 volts @ 850mA, whereas samsung adapters are 5.0 volts @ 700 mA, and the samsungs charge fine on our standard 5/500's while the moto's lag.
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It's not clear where the "500-900 mA" and "standard 5/500" figures you give come from. Neither is from the USB Battery Charging Specification.
The spec supports up to a 1.5 A current from a Dedicated Charging Port. The HTC charger is rated at 1 A, and it seems the TB will use all of it. I've seen charging rates of 800 mA, with the phone also running screen, GPS, and more.
Cheap ones, regardless of output, may be poorly filtered with a significant AC component. Those are the ones which will really cause problems.
This weekend I went on a trip and decided to try out using my Skyrocket as a GPS navigator using Google Navigation. I had my phone mounted and plugged in the whole time for about a 2 hour trip. The screen was on the whole time usually at high brightness (it would dim every once in a while.) When I removed my phone from the mount I noticed the power was down to the low 60's, which struck me as slightly odd since it was plugged into the charger the whole time. The next day I tried to use it as a GPS system again, but even as it was plugged in, this time I literally saw the battery gauge draining. When I turned off navigation and the screen the phone would finally start charging.
Is this a common thing or is there an issue with my phone or possibly my charger? Does doing all those things really drain the battery faster than it can charge it? One last note is that I was not in an LTE area during this, or at least not the whole time (I only noticed it was LTE at one time during the trip.) When I saw my battery draining in front of me I definitely was not in an LTE area.
Might be your charger. I'm having no problems using it as my primary driving, hiking and general outdoor GPS unit. When on car charger, it's charging faster then it drains.
I believe my charger is an old Motorola car charger that came with my wife's old dumbphone. It's actually not even a Micro-USB charger, but rather a Mini-USB with an adapter.
This may be a dumb question, but the actual charging port shouldn't be the issue right? I'm assuming those are always the same standard.
Check the car charger amperage output. I have an old car charger to USB that only puts out 750mA and another thats puts out 1A. Anything less than 1A with the navigation running (which means the screen and GPS stay on, of course), and it'll still drain the battery (and even at 1A it may still drain).
I've been putting off getting a powerful enough car charger myself. You'll need one that puts out 1-2A I would think. Most of the common ones off the shelf are 1A or less, and I've heard that some chargers reported max output is not as good as reported.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727
jslanger said:
Check the car charger amperage output. I have an old car charger to USB that only puts out 750mA and another thats puts out 1A. Anything less than 1A with the navigation running (which means the screen and GPS stay on, of course), and it'll still drain the battery (and even at 1A it may still drain).
I've been putting off getting a powerful enough car charger myself. You'll need one that puts out 1-2A I would think. Most of the common ones off the shelf are 1A or less, and I've heard that some chargers reported max output is not as good as reported.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727
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i second this...my phone won't even charge on some wall chargers, unless 700mAh or higher. let alone do any battery heavy functions like GPS. get something with at least 1a output
I'll try swapping the chargers. I have an overpriced AT&T one that I got for free that is collecting dust.
If the charger has 1A output then it should be OK
I'm having the same problem with my Skyrocket and cheapy charger that I bought at Fry's. Use the navigation with screen on and my battery is less than when I plugged it in.
Going to buy this combo 2A and 1A charger.
http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-2-Port-..._1_5?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1329796381&sr=1-5
Its the amount of mah your charger is putting out. Not the phone. The charger is not supplying enough power
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk
CZ Eddie said:
I'm having the same problem with my Skyrocket and cheapy charger that I bought at Fry's. Use the navigation with screen on and my battery is less than when I plugged it in.
Going to buy this combo 2A and 1A charger.
http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-2-Port-..._1_5?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1329796381&sr=1-5
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Click to collapse
When I was looking for a more powerful option, I saw that one on Amazon as well. My only hesitation at buying it was why it was so much cheaper than all comparable options at local stores, or even online...I've heard that the cheapie chargers may not actually output what they say...though for $4 plus shipping, I guess it's not much of a gamble. Let us know how it performs!
P.S.-Pulled up the reviews...not too many positive ones (though 1 or 2 were good): http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-2-Port-...iewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Its actually more than just the charger output that is a problem. If the center two pins on the USB connection aren't shorted, the phone will treat it as a USB connection to a computer, not an AC connection from the wall, and only draw a max 500mah. I had bought a 1amp and 2 amp charger for my car and would get the same results as the 500. I started to think it was my car limiting my output!
But I then found an article detailing this problem that I've since lost the link to, but the method worked. Pop open the charger and solder the 2 middle connectors together and all is good.
I don't know why the charger manufacturers don't know this... Or maybe this phone is doing something new? Maybe someone makes a USB-> micro USB with the center pair shorted in cable?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk
Just Google "Solder USB Car Charger" and you'll find plenty of tutorials about how to do that. Personally I'd rather just buy one that out of the box works.
Tried out my AT&T charger (which can be found here) and it worked perfectly. Set up the GPS and everything and now it will charge even while doing all that stuff. Thanks for the help
I have the same issue with my SkyRocket. LTE makes no difference. If I'm using Google Navigation or Waze and the Screen is on my charger/phone can't keep up with the battery drain. If I turn the screen off and keep the GPS app running the battery either doesn't drain or doesn't drain as fast.
I've checked my car charger and it's one of those dual usb ones, with a 1 amp port and a 2.1 amp port. It has no indication of which port is which, so I don't know what port I'm using at any particular time. I've tried both and the effects are the same.
Regardless, when the phone is plugged in to that charger the phone reports that it's an AC charger. Supposedly that means I'm getting at least 1 amp, right? So why is 1 amp not enough?
I don't like the car charger you guys suggested because it has the curly cord. I'd rather use a car charger that doesn't come with a cable so I can plug in my own usb cable.
Any suggestions?
I want a charging dock for my S4 that will feed the phone the full amount of power that it can take, for quickest charging. I believe the stock charger that came with it supplies 2 amps.
I also would like said charger to have a slot for charging a spare battery at the same time.
All the charging docks I've found so far only claim to supply 1 amp to the phone, or less. Except one dock I found that did say it outputs 1.6 amps.
Does anybody know of a charging dock that will supply the full 2 amps? How about one that also has a slot for charging a spare battery?
Thanks.
stuartv said:
I want a charging dock for my S4 that will feed the phone the full amount of power that it can take, for quickest charging. I believe the stock charger that came with it supplies 2 amps.
I also would like said charger to have a slot for charging a spare battery at the same time.
All the charging docks I've found so far only claim to supply 1 amp to the phone, or less. Except one dock I found that did say it outputs 1.6 amps.
Does anybody know of a charging dock that will supply the full 2 amps? How about one that also has a slot for charging a spare battery?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you like it to serve you eggs and ham as well?
Damn.. you are really asking for so much and not nearly searching for it yourself enough if that makes sense.
There are charging docks that have a battery charger slot as well. They have a microusb port for power input. You can use a 2A charger with it and I believe it should be charging the phone at 2A but only when you're not charging the spare battery. I do not have the link as I saw it while randomly browsing through S4 docks on eBay. It's easy enough to find.
No, thanks. If it could cook my eggs and ham, it would be too bulky. LOL!
I looked through roughly 150 listing on eBay. I saw a whole bunch that said 1A output. And a few that were 700 mA, and at least one that was 500 mA. And exactly one model, available from a few different vendors, that said 1.6A output.
I did not see any that said 2A output. Just because the wall wart can supply as much as 2 amps, doesn't mean the charger will actually output that much to the phone.
stuartv said:
No, thanks. If it could cook my eggs and ham, it would be too bulky. LOL!
I looked through roughly 150 listing on eBay. I saw a whole bunch that said 1A output. And a few that were 700 mA, and at least one that was 500 mA. And exactly one model, available from a few different vendors, that said 1.6A output.
I did not see any that said 2A output. Just because the wall wart can supply as much as 2 amps, doesn't mean the charger will actually output that much to the phone.
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Click to collapse
My advice, is you should risk it.
If you're looking a product with such precise specs, I'm afraid you're not going to find it.
I messaged several different ebay sellers last night to ask if their charger is really only 1A and if they'll be having a 2A model. So far, I've gotten responses from 3 or 4. All of them have said sorry, we only have 1A. Please note, it will charge more slowly.
Update info. This may be old news to many, but here it is.
I had an online chat with a Supervisor at Seidio this morning. Their website has 2 charging docks for the S4 and neither lists charging output.
They told me that the dock will output whatever the wall adapter supplies. The charging dock is a passthrough. So, if I use the stock OEM charger with the Seidio dock, my phone will (allegedly) still receive 2A of charging current.
This may have been intuitively obvious to some, but it wasn't to me.
So, my quest is now much easier. Apparently, the docks I looked at on eBay that say 1A charging output must say so because the supplied wall adapter only provides 1A. And ones that say that but don't include the AC adapter are just making an assumption about that AC adapter you'll use.
BUT, though the phone charging port may be a passthrough, the slot for charging a second battery (on docks that offer that) would have the charging logic/circuitry built into the dock, so that could still be limited to 1A or less. At least, that's what I think. Could be wrong.
Regardless, i ordered a cheap dual charging dock off eBay that should be here by Friday. Using Galaxy Charging Current (a free app in the Play store), my phone shows 1900 mA charging current when plugged into the OEM charger directly. After I get the dock I ordered, I'll test that and report back.
If the dock will charge the phone at full speed, I can live with the spare battery being charged more slowly.
stuartv said:
I want a charging dock for my S4 that will feed the phone the full amount of power that it can take, for quickest charging. I believe the stock charger that came with it supplies 2 amps.
I also would like said charger to have a slot for charging a spare battery at the same time.
All the charging docks I've found so far only claim to supply 1 amp to the phone, or less. Except one dock I found that did say it outputs 1.6 amps.
Does anybody know of a charging dock that will supply the full 2 amps? How about one that also has a slot for charging a spare battery?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's NOT a dock but a charger and it does come with an OEM spare battery. It charges a battery from 0 to 100% in about 4 hours, which is faster than your phone would deplete a battery, even when gaming. Paid $47, no shipping from Amazon
I see the price have changed a bit meanwhile but it's worth it if they still don't charge any shipping. Ships directly from Korea (made in Korea - both, charger and battery)
stuartv said:
Update info. This may be old news to many, but here it is.
I had an online chat with a Supervisor at Seidio this morning. Their website has 2 charging docks for the S4 and neither lists charging output.
They told me that the dock will output whatever the wall adapter supplies. The charging dock is a passthrough. So, if I use the stock OEM charger with the Seidio dock, my phone will (allegedly) still receive 2A of charging current.
This may have been intuitively obvious to some, but it wasn't to me.
So, my quest is now much easier. Apparently, the docks I looked at on eBay that say 1A charging output must say so because the supplied wall adapter only provides 1A. And ones that say that but don't include the AC adapter are just making an assumption about that AC adapter you'll use.
BUT, though the phone charging port may be a passthrough, the slot for charging a second battery (on docks that offer that) would have the charging logic/circuitry built into the dock, so that could still be limited to 1A or less. At least, that's what I think. Could be wrong.
Regardless, i ordered a cheap dual charging dock off eBay that should be here by Friday. Using Galaxy Charging Current (a free app in the Play store), my phone shows 1900 mA charging current when plugged into the OEM charger directly. After I get the dock I ordered, I'll test that and report back.
If the dock will charge the phone at full speed, I can live with the spare battery being charged more slowly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hope it works out. The dock i ordered from seidio for my evo 3d did not charge at full power with the supplied adapter. I used a diff cable and power source and the results were better, but still not very good. Most nights I simply removed the cable and plugged the phone directly to it bypassing the dock, kind of defeated the purpose. I hope to find one that keeps the S4 charged.
Well, I received my eBay dock today, 2 days early. It is this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/111066155507?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
And when I plug it in and put the phone in it, I get a message that the connected charger is not compatible with this phone. And the phone shows a red X over the battery icon in the notification bar, and doesn't charge at all.
I tried it using the OEM charger and cable, the cable that came with the dock, and I also tried both cables using my OEM charger that came with my Note 10.1 tablet.
Exactly one time, when I put the phone into the dock, it didn't display a message and Galaxy Charging Current (app in Play) showed that it was charging at 1900 mA. But, several times before, and every time after that, it just displayed the message and wouldn't charge at all.
:crying:
nacos said:
It's NOT a dock but a charger and it does come with an OEM spare battery. It charges a battery from 0 to 100% in about 4 hours, which is faster than your phone would deplete a battery, even when gaming. Paid $47, no shipping from Amazon
I see the price have changed a bit meanwhile but it's worth it if they still don't charge any shipping. Ships directly from Korea (made in Korea - both, charger and battery)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen that and that's a big "no way". My normal deal is, if I run out of battery, it's because I'm out and about. Traveling on a plane. Riding my motorcycle. Whatever. Situations where I don't have the option to plug in. So, I swap batteries on the go and the charge when I get to where I'm going.
This charger on Amazon would require me to carry it, plus my phone charger, plus an additional phone charger to run the separate battery charger. If I were just going to share my phone charger between the phone and the separate charger, I would rather just have the phone on the charger and, when it's fully charged, swap batteries, to charge the next one - not swap the charger cable over to the separate battery charger.
if I were going to go the route of a separate battery charger, I would spend $7 or so on eBay on one of the ones that has a flip-out plug built in and plugs right into the wall. That is the kind I have been using for a while to charge my Rezound batteries when traveling.
The biggest problem with those is that they charge the battery at something like 350mA. Ridiculously slow!
stuartv said:
I've seen that and that's a big "no way". ...if I run out of battery, it's because I'm out and about. Traveling on a plane. Riding my motorcycle. Whatever. Situations where I don't have the option to plug in. So, I swap batteries on the go and the charge when I get to where I'm going.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...buddy, that's EXACTLY what this is. It simply gives you the option of charging another OEM battery (in the charger NOT in the phone) BEFORE you go out and about and then swap them as you need.
NO, it's NOT charging as slow as you suggest. They use a technology called direct charge which means that it draws as much (or as little) as your wall plug allows it. In other words if you plug it in the PC USB, then yes, you'll have to wait until you grow a nice thick beard, but if you plug it in your original 2A charger, it'll charge the battery from 0-100% in about 4 hours or less.
stuartv said:
This charger on Amazon would require me to carry it, plus my phone charger, plus an additional phone charger to run the separate battery charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutely NOT true:
1. You ONLY need to carry the charger if you plan on recharging the depleted battery BEFORE doing another swap - that's at least 12-15 hours on EXTENSIVELY using BOTH batteries - that's 12-15 hours screen on!!!
2. ONE phone charger can be used on either/or - you'll never have to charge them both in the same time (that's the idea with swapping the batteries, right?)
stuartv said:
If I were going to go the route of a separate battery charger, I would spend $7 or so on eBay on one of the ones that has a flip-out plug built in and plugs right into the wall.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Up to you buddy, but usually you get what you pay for. The one I suggested comes with an OEM battery. I always suggest using this method over any battery pack as an OEM battery will ALWAYS give you just as much "juice" (this translates into running time) as the...yeah, you guessed it, the Original Equipment Manufacturer's battery. Although the battery packs manufacturers, they all claim huge capacities and running times, this mostly never holds true to the advertised specifications. It's called marketing
nacos said:
...buddy, that's EXACTLY what this is. It simply gives you the option of charging another OEM battery (in the charger NOT in the phone) BEFORE you go out and about and then swap them as you need.
NO, it's NOT charging as slow as you suggest. They use a technology called direct charge which means that it draws as much (or as little) as your wall plug allows it. In other words if you plug it in the PC USB, then yes, you'll have to wait until you grow a nice thick beard, but if you plug it in your original 2A charger, it'll charge the battery from 0-100% in about 4 hours or less.
Absolutely NOT true:
1. You ONLY need to carry the charger if you plan on recharging the depleted battery BEFORE doing another swap - that's at least 12-15 hours on EXTENSIVELY using BOTH batteries - that's 12-15 hours screen on!!!
2. ONE phone charger can be used on either/or - you'll never have to charge them both in the same time (that's the idea with swapping the batteries, right?)
Up to you buddy, but usually you get what you pay for. The one I suggested comes with an OEM battery. I always suggest using this method over any battery pack as an OEM battery will ALWAYS give you just as much "juice" (this translates into running time) as the...yeah, you guessed it, Original Equipment Manufacturer's battery. Although the battery packs manufacturers, they all claim miraculous capacities, they NEVER actually last as per specifications. It's called marketing
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Click to collapse
I don't think you're getting me. The point is, I get to the end of the day and I need to charge my phone AND the battery I used up. In order to charge both at the same time, using this Samsung separate battery case/charger, I would have to have 2 actual chargers. One to attach to my phone, to charge that battery, and one to attach to the separate case/charger.
Get it now?
More detailed:
- I start the day with 2 fully charged batteries. One is in the phone.
- I ride my motorcycle all day, streaming music via Bluetooth to my helmet, and talking on the phone while I'm riding.
- Before I'm done riding for the day, my battery dies, so I swap it.
- I continue riding, etc.
- I get where I'm going and I'm ready to go to bed.
- I now have a dead battery in one hand and phone with a partly depleted battery in the other hand. I want them to both charge while I'm sleeping.
This separate case/charger does not help me.
stuartv said:
I don't think you're getting me. The point is, I get to the end of the day and I need to charge my phone AND the battery I used up. In order to charge both at the same time, using this Samsung separate battery case/charger, I would have to have 2 actual chargers. One to attach to my phone, to charge that battery, and one to attach to the separate case/charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No offense, but I believe you don't get it. You say: "I need to charge my phone AND the battery". I should ask you then, do you still need to charge your phone and the BATTERIES (this is the plural, meaning two or more) should you go by my suggestion?
Either, or, if you're such a heavy user and you find yourself at the end of the day with 2 or more depleted batteries on a regular basis, then this becomes even more handy - admittedly, yes, using a second wall plug...or, again, if you're such a heavy user, then buy a 3rd OEM battery - case solved. (1 charger, 2 extra batteries, 1 USB cable, 1 wall plug)
nacos said:
No offense, but I believe you don't get it. You say: "I need to charge my phone AND the battery". I should ask you then, do you still need to charge your phone and the BATTERIES (this the plural, meaning two or more) should you go by my suggestion?
Either, or, if you're such a heavy user and you get to deplete 2 (or more) batteries on a regular basis, then this becomes even more handy - admittedly, yes, using a second wall plug. Furthermore, again, if you're such a heavy user, then buy a 3rd OEM battery - case solved. (1 charger, 2 extra batteries, 1 wall plug)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You obviously didn't read my whole last post. Otherwise, you would understand that saying "I need to charge my phone AND the battery" is a short way of saying "I need to charge the battery that's in my phone (but not totally dead yet) AND the battery that I depleted earlier in the day."
And if I added a 3rd OEM battery (which you would also see that there is no need for, if you read my whole previous post), it still would not change the fact that, at the end of the day, I have 2 batteries I need to charge and only 1 wall charger to use. So, the separate case/charger still does not help.
If I charge the battery in my phone and then want to use my one and only wall charger to charge the battery that's in the case/charger, I may as well just swap the batteries and charge the second battery in my phone. Thus, I would save running down the battery that's in my phone while the other battery is charging in the case/charger AND I would save spending $50 on the case/charger when I just used my coupon last night and got an OEM battery straight from Samsung for only $20.
stuartv said:
You obviously didn't read my whole last post. Otherwise, you would understand that saying "I need to charge my phone AND the battery" is a short way of saying "I need to charge the battery that's in my phone (but not totally dead yet) AND the battery that I depleted earlier in the day."
And if I added a 3rd OEM battery (which you would also see that there is no need for, if you read my whole previous post), it still would not change the fact that, at the end of the day, I have 2 batteries I need to charge and only 1 wall charger to use. So, the separate case/charger still does not help.
If I charge the battery in my phone and then want to use my one and only wall charger to charge the battery that's in the case/charger, I may as well just swap the batteries and charge the second battery in my phone. Thus, I would save running down the battery that's in my phone while the other battery is charging in the case/charger AND I would save spending $50 on the case/charger when I just used my coupon last night and got an OEM battery straight from Samsung for only $20.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, now I did get what you were saying (admittedly, I didn't read the whole post initially) but I still believe that carrying a second set (wall charger + USB cable) would render a better overall usage time without compromising on convenience or quality (again, due to using a certified OEM battery). Think about it, the only "compromise" you're making is carrying another set - which is nothing, both in terms of money and used space/volume.
So, your on-the-go package would consist of: 1 Samsung charger, 1 extra battery and 2 sets of wall chargers/USB cables.
Now, we're getting somewhere!
Your alternative would cost me something like $70 for the case/charger (w/battery) plus a second AC adapter.
My alternative will cost me less than $30. $20 that I already spent on a second OEM battery, plus less than $10 for a wall charger like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Charging-Cr...l_Phone_PDA_Chargers&var=&hash=item27d35082af
And I have less "pieces" to carry around.
Of course, the cheap wall charger won't charge the battery as quickly. But, I have been using a charger just like that for my Rezound batteries for a while now and it always seems to manage to get the job done overnight.
However, the PREFERRED solution is what I asked about in my OP in this thread. I want a dock that will supply full power to the phone and a spare battery at the same time. As I posted later in this thread, it now seems that most any charging dock should supply full power to the phone (as long as the AC adapter is providing 2A). Those docks still won't probably give full power to charge the spare battery, but I can live with that. So, with a dock like that, I would carry the same number of "pieces", but I'd have the advantage of having a dock to prop my phone up next to the bed, so I can see it.
stuartv said:
Update info. This may be old news to many, but here it is.
I had an online chat with a Supervisor at Seidio this morning. Their website has 2 charging docks for the S4 and neither lists charging output.
They told me that the dock will output whatever the wall adapter supplies. The charging dock is a passthrough. So, if I use the stock OEM charger with the Seidio dock, my phone will (allegedly) still receive 2A of charging current.
This may have been intuitively obvious to some, but it wasn't to me.
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I can 100% attest to this NOT being true. I have my OEM Samsung S4 2A charger hooked up to my Seidio Innodock Jr. at it receives a MAX of 1020mA. Yes, I realize it isn't the exact charger you are looking for since it doesn't have the spare battery compartment, but Seidio is NOT being truthful to you when they say that it is "a passthrough" dock. Just a heads up!
KryptosXLayer2 said:
I can 100% attest to this NOT being true. I have my OEM Samsung S4 2A charger hooked up to my Seidio Innodock Jr. at it receives a MAX of 1020mA. Yes, I realize it isn't the exact charger you are looking for since it doesn't have the spare battery compartment, but Seidio is NOT being truthful to you when they say that it is "a passthrough" dock. Just a heads up!
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What are you using to determine your max of 1020A? Galaxy Charging Current? Battery Monitor Widget?
stuartv said:
What are you using to determine your max of 1020A? Galaxy Charging Current? Battery Monitor Widget?
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Both, they both display the same data - the BMW widget takes longer to update since I paid for the full version of GCC
KryptosXLayer2 said:
Both, they both display the same data - the BMW widget takes longer to update since I paid for the full version of GCC
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I have both and they do not display the same data. As far as I can tell, GCC shows the actual full incoming current. OTOH, BMW shows the current being used to charge the battery.
When I plug in my OEM charger, GCC shows 1900. But, if the screen is using 100 and other stuff running is using another 100, the BMW would only show 1700.
So, as far as your post about the Innodock, if GCC shows 1020, then that's what I would believe. But, if it's BMW that's telling you 1020, then that could simply be because there is other stuff using almost 900 mA of current.
For the record, I looked through my BMW Usage log from last night when my phone was on the charger. The log shows every 5 minutes, I think. It only had one log entry where it showed 1992. All the rest were in the 1500 - 1600 range or less. And the phone screen was off that whole time.
I bought a brand-new Nexus 5 a few weeks ago. However it came with a 0.85A wall charger which is LG branded... and some 'generic' cable that was included too. Used it twice, but it took around 8-10 hours just to charge 80% of it. I plugged my old Galaxy Ace USB cable to the LG charger and it reduced to two and a half hours, same with my alternate charger from the aforementioned phone (5.0V + 0.7A).
But this led me to a question: Is using alternate chargers with < 1.2A of output a risky way to charge my Nexus 5 battery? I saw somewhere that it might even damage the circuit board (a rare case) and I'm a bit worried about it.
Using a charger with a lower amperage output will take longer for the phone to charge. Also, using a cheaper cable will also lengthen the charge time as the cable can pass the full amount of power to the phone. This has been my experience with using oem cables vs dolls store cables me chargers.
audit13 said:
Using a charger with a lower amperage output will take longer for the phone to charge. Also, using a cheaper cable will also lengthen the charge time as the cable can pass the full amount of power to the phone. This has been my experience with using oem cables vs dolls store cables me chargers.
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But... Will a Samsung wall charger with 0.7A of output damage my phone if I use it as my main charger? Because I also have a chinaphone which came with a bad charger and the Samsung one works fine.
No, the Samsung charger @ 0.7A will not damage the phone. I use a 1.0 A and 2.0 A Samsung charger with my N5 and it has been fine for months and months.
With the Samsung 0.7A charger, battery gets charged in 2:10 hours. I still don't understand it since I came from a low-end Samsung device which could complete its charge in about three hours (and that one had a 1500mAh battery...)
This is a tricky question, no doubt about it.
IMO, the cable quality is way more important than the current output (0.7 A, 0.85 A, etc).
I have a Samsung S4 charger with its cable (it seems very well built and it's thicker than other cables) and my N5 goes from 10% to fully charged in less than 3 hours.
Funny facts - happened to me:
- I had a very cheap cable (probably from China) that came with a battery bank. Surprisingly, it was the fastest way to charge my phone - reached almost 2.0 A. Later I found the trick: this cable doesn't have all the four wires, it only had two (positive and negative, without the data wires). I believe the data wires is used to perform some kind of amperage control; without it, no control was done and led to a very fast (probably dangerous) charging. I don't use this cable anymore, chances are that this nasty cable screwed up my notebook battery
- My N5 is almost two years old. Recently I had a problem with the Power button, the internal contact of the switch on the board was stuck 'pressed' and this led my phone to an endlessly force-reboot. I discovered this behavior after some google search and one of the possible causes of it is exactly the usage of a non-default / faster charger, it said that this could melt something - SOURCE
It makes sense, but I can't confirm this. I was able to fix this by smashing the phone on a table a few times (lol) and I'm still using a non-default charger
Can anyone confirm / say something about these facts?
For those who wants to see the diference between cables and chargers, give this app a try:
Play Store - Ampere
This app is a current meter, I use it on a regular basis and it is pretty reliable - the dev it's a XDA member and this app can be discussed here
Hope this helps!
You can not harm a phone with a 5 volt charger. The phone takes the amps it needs. More is better than less. I use 2 amp, 5 volt ones. As has been said the usb cable is the key thing. The better quality the better charge.