Once upon a time there were the chargers included in the package of smartphones and maybe they won’t be there anymore. After the news that Apple, starting fromiPhone 12, could remove the charger from the standard equipment now comes the analogous one of a farewell to battery chargers in the Samsung packaging.
The news comes from Korean sources and has no official confirmation (as indeed it does not even have that on Apple). It is said that Samsung he would be considering this hypothesis, but he would not have made a final decision yet. Removing the charger from the package may also only concern top-of-the-range smartphones and not even the cheap low-end ones. In principle, buying a smartphone without a charger could have more pros than cons for the end customer, but this decision by two top manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung could hide something else. Something much less pleasant for the user.
Smartphone without charger: convenient?
The reason why Apple e Samsung they would be thinking of remove the charger from the packaging their top-of-the-range products are simple: these accessories cost a lot, even to the manufacturer, and everything that can be removed would be a saving. For those who sell and for those who buy.
On the other hand, everyone today has at least one charger in their home, the legacy of a previous smartphone, and they are therefore able to recharge a new smartphone even if they cannot find the charger inside the package. There would also be an environmental advantage, since storing chargers in the drawers does nothing more create future WEEE electronic waste to be disposed of. The real issue, however, is the charging power.
Fast reloading: what to expect
If we have a battery charger in the drawer it’s because it dates back to an old smartphone. For sure that charger will still be working, but it will be slow because it will have low output power. The new top of the range smartphones, however, among the feature flagship have fast charging and that means if I buy a today iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy with fast charging and there is no charger in the package, then I will have to spend more money if I want to use fast charging. This means that in order to take full advantage of the features I’ve already paid for, then I have to pay again.
But not only that, because this could only be the first phase of a long-term reasoning that will lead manufacturers to make fast chargers “owners”: if charger and smartphone talk, and they can do it via USB-C or via Lightning or even through a trivial RFID tag, then a smartphone manufacturer can force us to use only its chargers if we want fast charging. Maybe citing security reasons. And all this could also happen in the Android world.
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