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Help Are all car phone charger the same?

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I have a samsung S4. I want to use a car charger (those kind that one end plug into the car cigarette lighter hole, one end plug into phone)

I got a no brand car charger but not sure if suitable for use.

Are all car charger same standard? Need to see what specs?

Any tips for choosing and buying a car charger?

Thanks
 
Hi

Just like mains chargers they come with different max amp (current) outputs. All should be at 5 volts. The max current should be 0.5amps (minimum spec) up to 3 amps (fine for high consumption products such as tablets. ) Get one with at least the same current rating as the mains charger that came with your S4. The amount of current drawn is controlled by the device being charged. A charger rated at 3amps will not damage a phone that draws only 1 amp, but a device needing a 2 amp charger may actually discharge if plugged into a 0.5amp charger while its in use.

Hope this helps

Roger
 
girolez said:
Hi

Just like mains chargers they come with different max amp (current) outputs. All should be at 5 volts. The max current should be 0.5amps (minimum spec) up to 3 amps (fine for high consumption products such as tablets. ) Get one with at least the same current rating as the mains charger that came with your S4. The amount of current drawn is controlled by the device being charged. A charger rated at 3amps will not damage a phone that draws only 1 amp, but a device needing a 2 amp charger may actually discharge if plugged into a 0.5amp charger while its in use.

Hope this helps

Roger
Click to expand...

Does the phone give warning/notification that it is discharging? It seems weird that turning on 0.5amp would discharge the phone if the device needs more than 0.5amp, I thought it would only charge slower because when the 0.5amp is still going into the power when the charger is switched on.
 
spman said:
Does the phone give warning/notification that it is discharging? It seems weird that turning on 0.5amp would discharge the phone if the device needs more than 0.5amp, I thought it would only charge slower because when the 0.5amp is still going into the power when the charger is switched on.
Click to expand...
It depends on the apps running and the hardware resources being drawn upon (and therefore, somewhat on the phone or tablet itself).

If I'm doing something that drives all four of my cpu cores to the max frequency and lots of graphics and radio use, when I put it on a 0.5 A charger, I get a popup warning that the current draw exceeds the charger supply.

Under those conditions, it won't charge slower, it just drains slower until you kill or switch apps to something less intense. (And now this that I think about it, I've had that happen with dual and single core phones too.)

But normally and most of the time, yes, 0.5 A charging supply just means that it's going to charge more slowly.
 
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