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Apple Introduces New 5W Charger With Folding Pins in United Kingdom

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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple has introduced a new 5W USB power charger with folding pins for use in a handful of countries in Europe and Asia. The new adapter is available now for £25 on the Apple Online Store in the United Kingdom, and is designed for use in Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia as well. The charger is also included in the box with the Apple Watch in those countries.

Apple-5W-Charger-Folding-Pins.png
British former professional rugby player Will Carling shared photos of the new folding charger on Twitter earlier this month after claiming to have received the adapter from Apple design chief Jony Ive, who grew up in England and is known to be a rugby fan, but it was unknown at the time if Apple would ever release the product.

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The travel adapter, which can also be used to charge an iPhone, iPod touch and several other iPod models, is currently available to ship within 1-2 business days on the Apple Online Store in the United Kingdom. The original non-folding 5W charger remains available in the United Kingdom for £15 as of now.

Article Link: Apple Introduces New 5W Charger With Folding Pins in United Kingdom
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/24/apple-5w-charger-folding-pins-uk/
So...does the US get a cool new folding charger? Or still the same little one with prongs sticking out?
 
It's very clever but what a rip-off! £25!?!?!?

For £15 I bought one of these:

51bNfsi8dUL._SL1000_.jpg


While not as pretty, it's a far superior product.
 
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Got one in the box with my SS Apple Watch....it's excellent and typical Apple quality.
 
USB port

has anyone else noticed the USB port went to the side rather then in the front?? Or only the UK has always been on the side

And if they make it to the side I'll definitely get one since no more breaking wires when pushing back my chest or bed
 
I have one in my hands right now.

It's a lovely design, and provided it's got enough juice to charge an iPhone then I'll probably be buying another one for when I travel - it'll be so much less damaging in a laptop bag now, without the prongs pressing into things.

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Shimonnst said:
has anyone else noticed the USB port went to the side rather then in the front?? Or only the UK has always been on the side

And if they make it to the side I'll definitely get one since no more breaking wires when pushing back my chest or bed
Click to expand...

The USB port is in exactly the same position it's always been on UK chargers. It's only the folding prongs that are new (and the main unit is a smidgen thicker to accommodate the folding-ness)
 
Shimonnst said:
has anyone else noticed the USB port went to the side rather then in the front?? Or only the UK has always been on the side

And if they make it to the side I'll definitely get one since no more breaking wires when pushing back my chest or bed
Click to expand...

I thinks since they started using Lightning cables the USB socket has been on the bottom

Edit : The cable sticks out of the front on the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G chargers. The chargers from 3GS onwards were a lot smaller and the USB socket is on the bottom
 
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Cool. Just need a 12W version of this for iPad charging. And new MacBook charging.
 
Shimonnst said:
has anyone else noticed the USB port went to the side rather then in the front?? Or only the UK has always been on the side
Click to expand...

The UK has had it out to the side for a while - it's pretty standard over here to have the cable come out the bottom of the plug.
 
nice design...
many US readers probably don't realize how BIG the UK prongs are - so the folding effect really does have a big impact...
 
This is nice since my pocket now has 3 holes in it due to having the UK adapter with me all the time in case my iPhone needs charging...
 
beanbaguk said:
It's very clever but what a rip-off! £25!?!?!?

For £15 I bought one of these:

Image

While not as pretty, it's a far superior product.
Click to expand...

How is that far superior?

I don't need US pins on my charger, nor do I need a large "conversion block" to presumably make it compatible with a UK socket.

If I travel to the US (as I do frequently) then I use my US charger, or I use a small outlet adapter.

I'm not seeing the supposed "far superiority" of the device you have linked there, given that it is considerably bigger than Apple's (or anyone else's) 5W chargers. Samsung's is similarly small.

Also, unless you've looked at the power quality, it's hard to judge the quality purely based on the price - Apple consistently makes some of the best chargers (other high quality ones include Samsung, HP and Nokia).

Could it stand to be a little cheaper? Sure - it's worth an easy £20 with VAT in my book, but it's hardly a rip off.

Plus the design is now much more portable.
 
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aristobrat said:
The U.S. one for the iPad and notebooks has always had folding pins, hasn't it?
Click to expand...

The iPad one, yes - it's a square brick with a quadrant cut out of it - the plug fits into this corner and has pins that fold down into it, resulting in a fully square object with no extruding pins when it's folded. At least, it used to be.

The iPhone charger is a little oblong thing with fixed pins on the bottom, so it's smaller than the iPad charger but the pins do not fold. Samsung's charger also looks very similar to this.
 
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