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Charging cable MUST be Samsung-branded, or doesn't matter?

No they wont the new iphone just like other iphones come with chargers.

I was talking about extra charges and accessories. Of course every phone comes with one charger. But if you have car chargers, docks, etc. you'll need to buy all new ones for the iphone 5. My gym even has fitness equipment with a standard iPhone docking cable connected to them. It won't be any use at all to new iPhone 5 users.
 
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That's probably true only for the after-market ones. The original ones that phone companies supply are generally the more stable ones and they all charge at the same rate anyway.

Probably, generally,... maybe. Let's have some testing to find out.

I can't remember where I read it, but the guy that brought attention to this said the only other charger he found that worked the same as samsung stock was the Kindle charger.
 
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I used both the usb cable and dedicated wall charger that came with my wife's 2-year old Blackberry on several (3) android phones (and my kindle, and an external battery, and my MP3 player) with no problems. I interchange cables and chargers from all sorts of devices and never really seen any major problems except:

One wall wart (Samsung) would cause the touchscreen on phones charging with it to not respond correctly to touches. However, this happened on the phone it came with too. I'd chalk that up to a bad charger (not the cable - which works fine, just the charger).

I also damaged a cable by running over the micro usb end with my office chair (it was the BB one I think). I thought I fixed it by bending the one retaining clip that was bent back. It worked fine for awhile - until it shorted out or something a few days later causing my PC's usb ports to stop working until a reboot. (oops!) But it worked fine before I killed it on a few phones.

My Kindle's charger seems to get pretty hot when it charged my old phone (not the S3). Hotter than I ever noticed using it to charge the Kindle itself. I typically don't use it anymore.
 
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I used both the usb cable and dedicated wall charger that came with my wife's 2-year old Blackberry on several (3) android phones (and my kindle, and an external battery, and my MP3 player) with no problems.

Have you used the BB charger with the S3? I think it was supposed to be the S3 that was particularly fussy.

If so, how long does it take to charge, compared with the official charger?

I found my old BB charger but it has a fixed cable with a mini USB connector, not a micro USB, so I can't test it myself.
 
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Guys - it is all simple electric stuff. READ your charger in question and it will tell you the output, in either amps or m-amps.

Most of my Blackberry chargers as well as an older Samsung charger I have are 0.7amps or 700 mA (same thing). I also have one that is 500mA. They all work.

The new GS3 charger is 1amp or 1000mA. So it is more powerful. And therefore it charges faster (my guess is about 30% faster ;))

BUT you can still use the older chargers just fine (and I do so all the time). Just make sure that whatever charger you use has the correct VOLTAGE output (5.0V)
 
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Have you used the BB charger with the S3? I think it was supposed to be the S3 that was particularly fussy.

If so, how long does it take to charge, compared with the official charger?

I found my old BB charger but it has a fixed cable with a mini USB connector, not a micro USB, so I can't test it myself.

I have charged my GS3 with the Samsung charger as well as Motorola, LG, and Blackberry. I didn't do a timed test, but my "patience level" told me all charged at about the same rate. I didn't notice a difference.

On the old Blackberry chargers with a mini-plug I used a mini to micro adapter and it still worked well. My guess any good OEM charger with a 700ma or greater rating will work.
 
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Probably, generally,... maybe. Let's have some testing to find out.

I can't remember where I read it, but the guy that brought attention to this said the only other charger he found that worked the same as samsung stock was the Kindle charger.


So I did some testing... the original Samsung Charger charged my phone in about 3 hours from 10% charge.

An original BlackBerry charger also took the same time from 10%

An after market USB charger with cable took around 6 hours to charge from 15%!
 
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EpicMindWarp, The charger and the cables use two different protocols and you can't tell by reading the voltage/amp spec on the charger.

The USB connectors are standard four pin, two data and two power.
iPhone in their chargers have the device read the data pins.
Non iPhones use a charger only protocol from 2007 and 2009 (about) that shorts the two data pins in the charger.
Thus the device pulls amps based on the data pins being shorted.
All USBs devices connected to a PCs use the data pin protocol to limit the amps to protect the PC not the device.

Your idea about the after market or generic charger does not take into account which protocol they used.
Most went after the iPhone market and thus are short on amps. The device thinks its a PC outlet.

If the charger data says its for both iPhone and Non iPhone, it the iPhone protocol with the data pin will limit the amps. You'll be disappointed, I have several I played with.

iPhone makes a Charge Only cable to fool non iPhone chargers and you can get Charge Only cables with two wires to fool the non iPhone device as well. Better just to buy one that works the you don't have to label your cables.

Check the "do it yourself" fixes on the web. There are videos to show you how to cut the charger open and solder the data pins. Some go back years when the blackberry was having problems with the so called universal after market chargers.

Check the reviews on the chargers sold on Amazon. You'll see some feed back.
If you buy a single charger look for one not compatible with the iPhone.

It showed up in my LG Alley when the phone would loose charge while in use and plugged in to a after market chargers. I didn't care much because the screen was small and the Navigator wasn't as good as it is now.

The S3 is so much better at so many things people are starting use the Navigator, the phone, the music and notice more.

It needs 1.0 Amp not the PC or iPhone reduces amperage.
There are some dual car chargers with iPhone protocol on one side and non-iPhone on the other.

Here is one I found to work. The 1.0 Amp side works on the non-iPhone.
It's a GTMax Metalic Silver 2-Port USB Car Charger Adapter.
It will charge the phone while in use. I used it on a road trip today.
http://www.amazon.com/GTMax-Metalic-Silver-Charger-Adapter/dp/B005XRFRNU/ref=pd_cp_cps_1

There are others.

If you care it was while trying to find out why the generics I had did not work for my S3 I found
iPhone doesn't follow the:
September 2007 Open Mobile Terminal Platform,
the 17 February 2009 the GSM Association (GSMA) agreed standard charger for mobile phones,
the 22 April 2009 CTIA endorsed protocol, or
the Universal Charging Solution embraced by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) On 22 October 2009.

And the generic don't tell you.
I know too much time on my hands.

So I did some testing... the original Samsung Charger charged my phone in about 3 hours from 10% charge.

An original BlackBerry charger also took the same time from 10%

An after market USB charger with cable took around 6 hours to charge from 15%!
 
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I don't know what happened but at some point years ago, "Technical Support" has little to do with anything technical. It should be called, "Reading the Brochure Support" :(

Since the phone, manual do not state the SIII's power requirements, I tried asking Samsung "Technical" Support. They referred me to Accessories. :thinking:

I tried Technical Support live chat. They gave me the battery specs. :rolleyes:

I have another attempt in the queue....

The point here is that if the SIII pulls 1A in AC charge mode (one can infer this from the SIII's charger being rated 1A), your old 700-800mA chargers risk damaging the phone, the charger, the building (fire).

In USB charge mode, it only pulls 500mA per USB spec; if the SIII USB charges with your old 700mA charger, you're fine. (System Settings | Battery will report "Charging (AC) or "Charging (USB)")
 
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I don't know what happened but at some point years ago, "Technical Support" has little to do with anything technical. It should be called, "Reading the Brochure Support" :(

Since the phone, manual do not state the SIII's power requirements, I tried asking Samsung "Technical" Support. They referred me to Accessories. :thinking:

I tried Technical Support live chat. They gave me the battery specs. :rolleyes:

I have another attempt in the queue....

The point here is that if the SIII pulls 1A in AC charge mode (one can infer this from the SIII's charger being rated 1A), your old 700-800mA chargers risk damaging the phone, the charger, the building (fire).

In USB charge mode, it only pulls 500mA per USB spec; if the SIII USB charges with your old 700mA charger, you're fine. (System Settings | Battery will report "Charging (AC) or "Charging (USB)")

I am certainly not an expert, or EE, but I do dabble in electronics as a hobby, and have 4 years experience recharging RC aircraft lithium polymer batteries, which MUST be done correctly with the correct kind of charger, unless you like pyrotechnical displays and lost houses. :) So I have learned a bit about charging batteries.

To the best of my knowledge from what I have learned (and been instructed by a friend who IS an EE retired from Bell Labs) these regulated wall chargers cap out in amperage flow at their rated limit. The S3 can certainly use its 1A charger, but it can also use a lesser amperage charger (providing the voltage / polarity is exactly the same) and will simply sip power at the lesser charger's capacity, thus taking longer to charge.

It comes down to time vs. current, which is why these specs are rated as mA per Hour. 1000 mAh (1Ah) provides 1A of current to any size battery to which it is connected (voltage / polarity being correct of course). The size of the battery's capacity in mAh sets how long it takes to fully charge it at the rate of the connected charger. A 500mAh charger would take twice as long as a 1Ah charger.

You can actually get a reasonable estimate of charging time using these figures. The stock S3 battery is listed as 2100mAh, so it would take about 2.1 hours to charge it with the stock 1A charger (depending on the state of charge when you plugged it in, of course). If you use a 500mA charger, it takes twice as long, so maybe 4.2 hours. The phone will draw less and less current as it gets close to being charged, and since these are 'smart charging circuits' we are dealing with in the phones, it will cut off the charging current when it senses the battery is fully charged. This is why it doesn't hurt to leave it plugged in for lengths of time (like overnight).

Unless some other incident comes into play, like the wrong voltage, polarity, a bad connection, or defective charger, it 'shouldn't' hurt the S3 to use a lesser charger at all. It will just take longer to charge.
 
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- Voltage increases when current decreases with these chargers
- This has nothing to do with mAh, which is battery capacity; this strictly deals with the charging circuitry as it pertains to being connected to an out-of-tolerance power supply
- We don't know definitively what the SIII's tolerances are since "Technical" Support would rather give up and give an irrelevant answer and call it a day; we can only infer the SIII requires 1A by its included travel charger
- I am a retired EE--which means little beyond relying on general electronic principals if we don't know how the SIII (and the connected charger) was actually built
 
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- Voltage increases when current decreases with these chargers
- This has nothing to do with mAh, which is battery capacity; this strictly deals with the charging circuitry as it pertains to being connected to an out-of-tolerance power supply
- We don't know definitively what the SIII's tolerances are since "Technical" Support would rather give up and give an irrelevant answer and call it a day; we can only infer the SIII requires 1A by its included travel charger
- I am a retired EE--which means little beyond relying on general electronic principals if we don't know how the SIII (and the connected charger) was actually built


I'm not going to trump an EE but what you're saying doesn't pass the sniff test for me. I have several chargers and they all output 5.0 VOLTS at various max amps. I agree with Zoandroid in theory and practice. My GS3 charges just fine with my old Blackberry chargers that output 5.0 and 700 mA. It just takes a little longer.

I have a MAHA Nimh battery charger at home where you can set the current as precisely as you want. If you want a fast charge you can crank it up to 2 amps or if you aren't pressed for time you can crank it way down too....to even 100 mA or something. The instructions GUIDE YOU that it's typically best to use no more than 1/2 the rated capacity of your battery, ie for a 2500 mA battery then 1000 or 1200 is fine. Will 2000 work? Yes it will charge it FAST. But it may get HOT.

But there should be no issue with charging SLOWER, and in fact this specific charger uses slow charges, trickle charges, etc.

So I'm not buying your theory that there are issues with using anything other than a 1amp Samsung charger. What I COULD see is if there was some device with a very small battery (1200 mA for example) that came stock with a 500mA charger, you might not want to use the 1amp Samsung charger to charge IT, because it might get hot.

What do you think?
 
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