In modern smartphones, tablets and laptops, the battery is now one of the most important technical features to make the choice on which model to buy. Devices need to stay on and active for longer and longer, so a good device can be discarded in favor of one with lower performance but longer battery life.
That’s why more and more users are asking questions about how to recharge their smartphone, or any other battery-powered device, and how to preserve the efficiency of the battery as long as possible. One of the most frequently asked questions is whether charging a cell phone with a non-original charger will damage the battery. It’s easy to find more chargers in every home than batteries to charge because the charger usually outlives the device it is charging. But how does this work? Is one charger worth the other? Will charging with a non-original charger kill the battery?
All chargers are not the same
Let’s start with the first question and we can give a straight answer: no, all chargers are not the same. There are good quality chargers and bad quality chargers. Then there are fast chargers and slower chargers. Fast chargers can deliver more Watts of electrical power than slow chargers but if your smartphone can’t accept this power the charger will still deliver less. Then there are Power Delivery compliant chargers and non-compliant chargers. The PD standard is now almost mandatory to charge at full power.
Does using a non-original charger ruin the battery?
The answer is also no. For sure, at least on mid-range and high-end smartphones the manufacturers put in a charger that conforms to the standards best suited to the specific model. If the cell phone supports 15 Watt charging they will put a 15 Watt charger in the box, if it supports 30 Watt in the box you will find a 30 Watt charger and so on.
But unless you use counterfeit or damaged chargers and cables it is ok to mix and match chargers, cables and devices. However, with a non-original charger, we may not charge as quickly as we could. Some phones, such as those from Huawei and OnePlus, use a proprietary charging design, with part of the circuitry for fast charging built into the charger (and not into the smartphone).
So to take full advantage of fast charging on these devices you need to use the compatible charger. Otherwise it charges at low power. Other manufacturers, such as Samsung and Apple, use more “standard” chargers for fast charging as well and allow fast charging with just about any charger that can deliver maximum power.