14 DAY TRIAL // People don’t care half as much about chargers as they do about the quality and originality of the smartphone that gets juice from it, but electronics whiz Ken Shirriff assures us this is a terrible mistake.
In a lengthy blog post, Shirriff, who works at Google according to his G+ profile, explains the major differences in build quality between a genuine Apple charger and fakes. Apple itself once warned people that they should only use original adapters, and even offered to rid the market of the counterfeit chargers to protect users, after a couple of incidents.
“Apple sells their iPad charger for $19 [€13], while you can buy an iPad charger on eBay for about $3 [€2]. From the outside, the chargers look the same,” Shirriff explains.
“Is there a difference besides the price? In this article, I look inside real and counterfeit chargers and find that the genuine charger has much better construction, power quality, and most importantly safety. The counterfeit turns out to be a 5 watt charger in disguise, half the power of a genuine charger,” he writes.
The post in question is essentially a teardown report of two chargers, one genuine, one a blatant knockoff.
“From the outside, the real charger (left) and counterfeit charger (right) are almost identical,” writes Shirriff, posting the image you see below.
“Opening up the chargers reveals big differences between them. The genuine charger on the left is crammed full of components, fitting as much as possible into the case,” Shirriff notes.
He shows how the fake unit is much simpler in design, featuring far less and smaller components, with a great deal of empty space between them. In contrast, “The Apple charger uses larger, higher-quality components (in particular the capacitors and the transformer),” he points out.
He proceeds to explain what every component does and how these have a huge effect on power quality and safety. One of the more obvious differences is the lack of insulation inside the knockoff adapter, which can pose risks.
“The build quality of the Apple charger is much higher. In the counterfeit charger, some components are visibly crooked or askew. While this doesn't affect the circuit electrically, it indicates a lack of care in construction,” adds Shirriff.
He concludes, saying, “Safety probably isn't something you think about when you plug in your charger, but it's important. Inside the charger is 170 volts or more with very little separating it from your iPad and you. If something goes wrong, the charger can burn up (below), injure you, or even kill you.”