Develop Bugs

USB Charger - Upgrade Mod for SGS Phones.

more/better/other info in this thread. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1384253
This post will show you how to MOD an un-official Samsung USB wall charger into one that will enable full speed charging on Samsung Galaxy S phones.
8 $ ebay cheap wall battery charger power output specs:
350 mA battery charging speed - doesnt matter...
800 mA USB port.. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT!! more the better. nice if the phone would use all of it... Need AC Mode...
Samsung wall USB charger is only 750mA! AND it will set AC mode.
The theory behind it is with samsung galaxy phones and "official chargers":
if the middle 2 data pins on the usb, while getting 5v to the outer 2 pins it tells the phone that it is an *official samsung* charger and enables full speed charging.
without the middle 2 pins connected (with or without data flow) will not charge at full speed. even if you supply 800mA it will only charge around 350mA
well there have been posts of cable hacks to do this or adapters... ha! tape and tinfoil... or hack the cable apart! And you cant use the cable with the PC anymore!
heres my mod... bend 2 pins.. DONE! solder if you know how for better connection!
***only use this charger for samsung phones, not all USB devices will like this, -may dammage some- as the samsung phone is PROGRAMMED to know what to do if the 2 data pins are shorted out***
Phone confirms AC charging NOT USB NOW!! But Camera Died!
Now i can leave my Samsung Charger upstairs, and this one downstairs.
You know how long it takes to charge an extended battery on USB mode? or at 350 mah in the battery charger?
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Check out xda portal!!! Guess whos post made front page????

update on this mod..
was able to charge my extended battery from 8% to 100% in about 2 hours 45 min over USB with the screen off never timed before the mod but it was slower. In the official samsung charger it was a little over 3 hours. just in the battery cradle it takes around 5-6 hours. Very much improved!

Good tip ! sometimes I am almost 24 hrs.. this will help !

my old iPhone USB cable is capable of supplying up to 1A. it may be worth it to modify a cable, glue it in so it's no longer repurposable, and use the old iPhone wall adapter.

When I plug my old Blackberry charger into the phone, it shows "Charging (AC)" under the Status menu, is this saying that the Blackberry charger is putting the Cappy into full charge mode? Unfortunatly the charger does only say only 700mA output anyway.

yes its charging at full speed if it says AC. congrats.
good to know about BB chargers.

TRusselo said:
yes its charging at full speed if it says AC. congrats.
good to know about BB chargers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1A > 700ma. iphone wall charger has a usb port on it only.

TRusselo said:
yes its charging at full speed if it says AC. congrats.
good to know about BB chargers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More accurately, it means the phone will try to charge at full speed. I have an external battery that has the pins shorted, phone says AC, but it can only output 500ma, so it doesn't charge any faster.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App

tiuk said:
More accurately, it means the phone will try to charge at full speed. I have an external battery that has the pins shorted, phone says AC, but it can only output 500ma, so it doesn't charge any faster.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MORE accurately (as said before) it WILL charge at full speed, OF THE CHARGER.. not the phone. UPTO the full speed of the phone.
thats why i said my charger upped it to 800 not 1100ish in the first post. and why i told the other guy his is working at 700. it depends on the chargers output, that has been explained thank you.
and your charger that is putting out 500ma IS FASTER. without the mod your phone is only charging at "usb speed" or around 375ma ish... just barely faster...

+1 on the BB charger, my Cappy didn't come with a charger and I always had it plugged to that BB charger, I'm used to measure the battery charging time of my old Dell Streak on a "desktop charger" and took about 4 hours, this cappy charges in 2 hours and something, maybe 3 haven't measured accurately but I know it is waay quicker than 4 hours.

I literally just picked one of these up last night! Will be doing this mod asap thanks for the info!

just wondering after doing this mod, is the blue light supposed to be on the whole time now?

task650 said:
just wondering after doing this mod, is the blue light supposed to be on the whole time now?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interested about this as well. TRus does it?

yes the blue light is normal. the pins you connect inside dont connect to anything in the charger, they are just connected to themselves.
the blue light was on before the mod...

TRusselo said:
yes the blue light is normal. the pins you connect inside dont connect to anything in the charger, they are just connected to themselves.
the blue light was on before the mod...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The light is the indicator for if you charge the battery in the battery bay.
Am I right?

the light indicates power:
Blue for plugged in empty, or fully charged (battery or USB)
Pink if anything is drawing power (charging through battery or USB)
Purple if you have a battery and USB drawing power (over-drawing power!! disconnect one)

Hey Trusselo,
Nice mod. I bought of these with two after market batteries for $10. What do you think about wiring the battery contacts to a switch to the usb port to use the backup battery/charger as a portable charger? That way, you can go from charging the battery to using the battery aa portable charger?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

i barely understand what you are trying to say, however, the battery contacts on the charger are only 350mah , the usb port on the CHARGER is 800, so wiring the battery contacts on the charger (with or without a switch) would be a bad choice.
you may want to re-read the OP...

No offence intended
TRusselo,
No offence intended by the previous post. I didn't mean to thread jack either. I was just wondering whether it would be possible to use the same hardware intended to charge a spare battery and use it as a portable phone charger using the battery as the power source. Thanks for the info; I was hoping to convert this charger into a portable phone charger as well as keep the current functionality (using the switch). Thanks for the info though.

USB car charger from Walmart

Can the GT 10.1 plug into any USB car charger?
I was looking at this from Walmart's website
If so, it'll be a lot cheaper than the car charger Samsung is selling
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Scosche-Dual-USB-Car-Charger/5691047
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

I've noticed that plugging into various USB wall chargers won't work. The only one that will work is the one that came with the tab. I am pretty sure this is because the Samsung one is a 2amp charger and all of my others are less than 1amp, 850mah specifically. If you can find a 2amp car charger then it should work fine. Otherwise, the charging indicator will show that it's connected to a charger but will have a red x on in it meaning that it's not charging or can't charge. I suppose anything too low can't charge the battery fast enough to make up for the battery drain

i bought a $10 2 port charger from amazon for the ipad/galaxy tab 7". it works fine for both tablets and the gt10.1.

madsquabbles said:
i bought a $10 2 port charger from amazon for the ipad/galaxy tab 7". it works fine for both tablets and the gt10.1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have the link?

Make sure it has a 5v 2a output.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App

X10D3 said:
Make sure it has a 5v 2a output.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. Thanks.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

oh......i see.
X10D3 said:
Make sure it has a 5v 2a output.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my SHW-M110S using XDA App

I bought this one from deal extreme. Its less than $3.95 with free shipping. Comes with 2 usb ports. I have been charging my iPad and Dell Streak tablet without any problem. Yes it does charge 2 devices at same time. Its also small, doesn't get hot, doesn't make any noise and looks good. Highly recommended.
http://goo.gl/u00Gz

media_11 said:
I bought this one from deal extreme. Its less than $3.95 with free shipping. Comes with 2 usb ports. I have been charging my iPad and Dell Streak tablet without any problem. Yes it does charge 2 devices at same time. Its also small, doesn't get hot, doesn't make any noise and looks good. Highly recommended.
http://goo.gl/u00Gz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will definitely look into that particular model.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

figurine said:
I've noticed that plugging into various USB wall chargers won't work. The only one that will work is the one that came with the tab. I am pretty sure this is because the Samsung one is a 2amp charger and all of my others are less than 1amp, 850mah specifically. If you can find a 2amp car charger then it should work fine. Otherwise, the charging indicator will show that it's connected to a charger but will have a red x on in it meaning that it's not charging or can't charge. I suppose anything too low can't charge the battery fast enough to make up for the battery drain
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it's. still charging. you can get a trickle charge even from standard USB. s3ms that this is one of the only tegra2 tablets that can.
I heard that the trnaformer can but mine doesn't. it should work if I had USB.3.0.

madsquabbles said:
it's. still charging. you can get a trickle charge even from standard USB. s3ms that this is one of the only tegra2 tablets that can.
I heard that the trnaformer can but mine doesn't. it should work if I had USB.3.0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if l'm using it to watch videos and music while on wifi, do you think that it'll maintain its charge while trickle charging?

I bought a couple of these adapters;
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330565218553&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:AU:1123
Now I can charge my Galaxy Tab 10.1v off ANY USB port - very very handy. Works just very well from a PC USB port too.

figurine said:
So if l'm using it to watch videos and music while on wifi, do you think that it'll maintain its charge while trickle charging?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i don't think the amount coming in will equal the amount discharged. depends on the brightness of the screen and how much cpu you're using. mine was charging veeeerrry slowly while reading the steps to root and the screen on, other than that it was idle and still slowly charged.

media_11 said:
I bought this one from deal extreme. Its less than $3.95 with free shipping. Comes with 2 usb ports. I have been charging my iPad and Dell Streak tablet without any problem. Yes it does charge 2 devices at same time. Its also small, doesn't get hot, doesn't make any noise and looks good. Highly recommended.
http://goo.gl/u00Gz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also bought this. Arrived in 3 weeks from China, but free shipping, or $0.01.
They seem very good. There is some hard to read text (even in English) on the plastic part that tells you the top port is for iPad (2.1A) and the bottom is for others (1A). I've put a photo below of the guts. Seems it's definitely more than just some cheap resistors and a fuse.
I tried it in my vehicle and you still get the red X with a OEM cable with the device powered on, but NOT if you use an adapter plug found on eBay.
Do yourself a favor and order 3-4 of each. =)
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figurine said:
I've noticed that plugging into various USB wall chargers won't work. The only one that will work is the one that came with the tab. I am pretty sure this is because the Samsung one is a 2amp charger and all of my others are less than 1amp, 850mah specifically. If you can find a 2amp car charger then it should work fine. Otherwise, the charging indicator will show that it's connected to a charger but will have a red x on in it meaning that it's not charging or can't charge. I suppose anything too low can't charge the battery fast enough to make up for the battery drain
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope - you need a 2A charger, but any old 2A charger won't do. Most are designed for the iPad, which uses resistive voltage dividers in the charger to signal the presence of a dumb charger. Specifically the iPad looks for 2.0 volts on one of the data pins and 2.8 on the other.
The Tab expects D+ and D- to be shorted together and somewhere around 1.2-1.24 volts.
It IS possible to make iPad chargers (confirmed on Scosche reVIVE II) work as follows:
Bridge D+ and D- with a solder blob.
Remove the resistor that was the upper part of the 2.8v voltage divider (i.e. between the data pin and +5v).
At this point the charger should output around 1.2 volts on D+ and D-.

car charging

is there a way to modify a car usb charger to fast charge the nexus ?
thanx

Mine charges plenty fast on my free one that amazon sent with my phone.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

guinnes.s said:
is there a way to modify a car usb charger to fast charge the nexus ?
thanx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get the charger at the link below
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Vehi...Q9CA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334801727&sr=8-1
I got this to replace a cheapo one i had when i had my Droid X. With the old charger, I couldnt keep the screen on and use GPS and listen to music at the same time without the battery losing power. Basically the old charger acted like a battery extender lol.
This new charger charged my phone at least 3-4x faster...even while doing all the things listed above...WELL worth it

Vanhoud said:
Get the charger at the link below
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Vehi...Q9CA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334801727&sr=8-1
I got this to replace a cheapo one i had when i had my Droid X. With the old charger, I couldnt keep the screen on and use GPS and listen to music at the same time without the battery losing power. Basically the old charger acted like a battery extender lol.
This new charger charged my phone at least 3-4x faster...even while doing all the things listed above...WELL worth it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ho well i hope it works!
i previously got a 2amp usb car charger and still slow.

guinnes.s said:
ho well i hope it works!
i previously got a 2amp usb car charger and still slow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have that exact same car charger. Just make sure that you get it from a reputable dealer... I got mine from one of the parties for a few bucks cheaper and they sent me counterfeits. I had to contact Amazon where Amazon gave me my money back and also sent out two OEM from an Amazon warehouse with free expedited shipping!

guinnes.s said:
ho well i hope it works!
i previously got a 2amp usb car charger and still slow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quite a few of the cheaper car chargers simply do not have a point soldered on their boards, causing the phone to think it's charging from a 500mA USB port (like you'd find on a computer) and not go above that even if the charger does 1A/port.
I know even the belkin one has a forum topic somewhere regarding modifying it so that it'll always get detected as an AC power. I believe custom ROM's and kernels has a Fast Charge feature that can fix this too (ie force the device to detect the power as AC), I think.

I use the Motorola charger as well, and it works just fine... I had two lying around, one came with my Milestone and the other came with my Milestone Car Dock that I've bought separately...

Vanhoud said:
Get the charger at the link below
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Vehi...Q9CA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334801727&sr=8-1
I got this to replace a cheapo one i had when i had my Droid X. With the old charger, I couldnt keep the screen on and use GPS and listen to music at the same time without the battery losing power. Basically the old charger acted like a battery extender lol.
This new charger charged my phone at least 3-4x faster...even while doing all the things listed above...WELL worth it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting, this is the model I had and I ALWAYS felt like my battery was draining while using the GPS+Music combo. Not a lot, a few percent over a couple hours, but it's not charging it or atleast keeping its current charge. I want the official Sammy card dock. SOMEONE JUST TAKE MY MONEY.

HideYoKids said:
Interesting, this is the model I had and I ALWAYS felt like my battery was draining while using the GPS+Music combo. Not a lot, a few percent over a couple hours, but it's not charging it or atleast keeping its current charge. I want the official Sammy card dock. SOMEONE JUST TAKE MY MONEY.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe you will be disappointed...
First, this Motorola charger is good up to 2A, while the original Galaxy Nexus Wall Charger is good up to 1A, and Galaxy Nexus recognizes it as AC Charging, meaning that phone is draining as much current to charge as it can...
Second, I do not believe that those pogo pins are good to move 1A, and I could bet the farm (if I had one ) that it won't go over 1A for sure, so, I do not believe that the official car dock will allow more current than what this Motorola charger is already providing...
But, anyway, I doubt that charger is the one to blame, and I will tell you why... Battery is rated 6.8W/h and it usually allows up to 4 hours of screen on time... So, quick math, phone in use, screen on, is draining 1,7W/h and USB charging (500mA x 5V) gives you 2,5W/h, AC charging gives you 5W/h....
Lets say that you get up to 3 hours screen time with GPS on... It still is 2,27W/h... Below 2,5W/h USB charging limit...
So what is going on? Probably battery is too hot charging and being discharged at the same time (and probably the phone is not able to use the battery like a no-break and get its power from USB, so, phone is getting juice from battery and battery from charger) and phone will stop charging to avoid battery damage/explosion due to high temperatures, and also, battery efficiency is lower when battery is hot (it will drain faster)...
My guess is that if phone is still draining with a charger, in this case, check if it is too hot, and if it is, try to move it so it is cooled by car A/C / vent... At least, with milestone, it helps a lot, since I still own my Milestone and its gps is leaps and bounds better than Galaxy Nexus GPS, I've never really used Galaxy Nexus to navigate (yes, my Milestone turned into a dedicated Google Maps GPS )

its very easy to mod any usb charger to turn it into a AC charger. what you need to do is connect the two data pins.
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just connect pins 2 and 3 by solder, i've done this on a few car chargers and it works great always shows AC. i didnt modify the usb wire itself but opened up the charger and connect the solder points connected to the data lines, not sure if you can just mod the usb wire. i have 600mah car charger that i did this to, before it wasnt enough to charge the phone with google maps running now it can charge it very slowly.

Just a update,
i purchased the motorola charger and been working great for nearly a month till this couples of days.
the only way that charge is by holding and pushing up the micro port wile inserted in the phone.
i noticed that the charger micro plug does have clips on only one side ,the other side is flat.
does that mean is not a original charger???
thanx

I'm currently using this cables
http://ca.startech.com/Cables/USB-2...USB-Cable-A-to-Left-Angle-Micro-B~UUSBHAUB3LA
with this charger:
http://www.kensington.com/kensington/us/us/p/1411/K39224US/powerbolt™-micro-car-charger.aspx
No issues. the USB cable is very thine, so hides well on the dashboard.

http://www.amazon.com/HTC-T-Mobile-...KTHO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1337307263&sr=8-3
generally can be had for about 3 bucks shipped. works fantastic - the phone reports as being plugged in and charges accordingly.

Using Nexus 7 charger for S3 and vice a versa

Any effect on battery life or any other considerations to keep in mind when trading charges between different devices? Nexus 7 charger outputs 2A while S3 charger outputs 1A

I always charge my S3 using my Nexus 7 charger and have had no differences in battery life. Except charging is a lot faster.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

Same here. My S3 charger is still in the box. N7 charger is my go to charger!

itsalexaye90 said:
I always charge my S3 using my Nexus 7 charger and have had no differences in battery life. Except charging is a lot faster.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well if you do in fact see difference in charging speed, then why would not Samsung supply this kind of charger with S3 instead of 1A one? I assume this would be another feature to brag about (now charging twice as fast as ordinary charges or something). So I would assume it's either not true (placebo effect) or it's infact shall be having bad influence on battery. We need somebody with electrical degree probably to render final verdict.

BlackBerry has a rapid charger for the Playbook and they actually tell you there's no problems to use it on their handsets. I think the reason for not including it is that the price is so much higher - retail $50 vs $25. Same as iphone and ipad chargers.
I use my Play book charger almost exclusively with my S3 - and the Playbook has sat unused on the shelf for over 6 months.

Charging speed is controlled by the kernel, so you could technically charge with any charger in existence but the kernel will only allow the phone to charge at a preset amount. The stock charger is under this voltage cap so other chargers will charge faster, but as I said, it is capped. So I wouldn't worry about it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

corythug said:
Charging speed is controlled by the kernel, so you could technically charge with any charger in existence but the kernel will only allow the phone to charge at a preset amount. The stock charger is under this voltage cap so other chargers will charge faster, but as I said, it is capped. So I wouldn't worry about it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So reported faster charging is placebo?

artisticcheese said:
So reported faster charging is placebo?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said, the in box charger will not max out the phones charging speed, so other chargers can and will charge faster, to a certain extent.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

I've tried with my OEM sgs3 and sony vita charger. The phone draws the same current on both. So yes placebo. And to answer if charging at a higher current is bad for the battery, it depends on the battery cell. But usually charging at a higher current does shorten it's life.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium

yea i use a bb charger for my s3 im not sure if it charges faster then the samsung one but it doesnt take long to go from 10% to 100%

55nxb said:
I think that as long as we don't often mobile phone boot shutdown of the battery life is not how to reduce, I take you the wrong phone life is very good can achieve more than 40 hours of time it brought me a lot of good
http://www.elewarehouse.com/ANDIDA-...n-Charger-For-Samsung-Galaxy-Y-Duos-32979.htm
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Click to expand...
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What did you just say?

callen81 said:
I've tried with my OEM sgs3 and sony vita charger. The phone draws the same current on both. So yes placebo. And to answer if charging at a higher current is bad for the battery, it depends on the battery cell. But usually charging at a higher current does shorten it's life.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about in reverse? Can I charge Nexus 7 with lower amperage S3 charger? Any ill effects?

I use a Motorola charger because it has two usb females
Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app

As long as a USB charger puts out the required 5v it will do fine. The device will pull as many amps as it wants out of the charger up to the max capacity of the charger. If the charger cant put out as many amps as the device wants, the device will just charge slower at the lower amperage.
As slower charging heats up batteries less and stresses them less, this isnt a problem at all unless you are in a hurry. I charge mine at night and could care less how fast it charges.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

Over drawing current from a charger isn't a great idea. Most chargers are designed to run at 80% max current for short periods if you run them higher they can do a number of bad things.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium

Best Charger For GNex (or any USB device)

I've been hunting for an extra, high quality, 2A USB charger for my devices - but I didn't want to pay $25-$30 to get a Samsung or Asus 2A USB charger. And then I came across this blog entry by Ken Shirriff where he went and reviewed 12 different USB chargers including genuine and fake apple chargers + other brands.
http://goo.gl/rym3M
Really good and informative post. Definitely recommend a read. For the Cole's notes version, apple makes great USB chargers ... but not the best. The best USB charger in this review actually turned out to be the USB charger that came with the ill-fated HP TouchPad. This charger has very low noise and voltage drop characteristics.
What's more, you can actually get these great HP chargers for $15 on eBay. Or via Kijiji for $15 if you're in the Toronto area.
Mine is off Kijiji and here are logged screenshots of my GNex charging from 12% to 100% with both the Samsung charger that came with it and the HP Charger.
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FYI, I use this charger for both my GNex and my N7. I've posted OEM vs HP Charger graphs from my N7 here.

I see nothing in those graphs that makes me think one is better than the other. The lines are virtually identical, they go from 12%-100% in the same amount of time.
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RyanTX said:
I see nothing in those graphs that makes me think one is better than the other. The lines are virtually identical, they go from 12%-100% in the same amount of time.
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It doesn't buzz like the stock one and it doesn't get hot when charging the GNex at ~1A like the stock one does. As well, this charger is capable of handling tablet charging as well. Guess I should have indicated all this in my first post.

RyanTX said:
I see nothing in those graphs that makes me think one is better than the other. The lines are virtually identical, they go from 12%-100% in the same amount of time.
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The post is rating the chargers on far more than just how quickly it charges a phone.
Just to add my two cents, anecdotally, before even seeing this post, I was going to say that the touchpad chargers have been the best I've used also. Glad i bought 4 or 5 of them for $5/each when hp went on their firesale binge.

I read that same article and bough two of them months ago for $6. They are great. They do have a slight buzz if you put your ear up to them but nothing like the samsung one. Highly recommend them.

Interesting article. Not really sure what to make of it though, beyond not buying counterfeit chargers?

I've actually got a bunch of those HP chargers for my Gnex. I got them straight from HP for $4 each last summer. Very awesome chargers.

Is it healthy to charge the battery that fast ?

Cupellom said:
Is it healthy to charge the battery that fast ?
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I think its not.
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Cupellom said:
Is it healthy to charge the battery that fast ?
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palco2 said:
I think its not.
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Well... the battery charges at the same speed for both the stock 1A charger and the HP 2A charger. The device itself regulates how much power it will draw, and drawing 1A from a 2A charger is surely more efficient and will result in a longer lasting and better charger, as well as one that can be used for tablets and other USB devices that want to draw more than 1A. I wonder if you can take the 2A charger and put a USB Splitter or something on there and charge 2 1A devices at the same time... I'd imagine so.

I use my OEM Galaxy S4 charger. It charges all of my devices faster than any other charger I've ever tried.