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Car charger question.

S

StephenCampbell

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 21, 2009
1,043
54
So, I've been hesitant to use a car charger with my iPhone 4 because I've read stuff about car chargers destroying batteries or not working and stuff, but my friend has this CH102 USB car charger, and insists that 5V to USB is 5V to USB, and that it would work with the phone just fine. I tested it with my iPhone 1, and it seemed to work. Do you think it's okay to use with the iPhone 4? It would be really handy since I'm currently on the road about 10 hours a day.

Thanks.
 
StephenCampbell said:
So, I've been hesitant to use a car charger with my iPhone 4 because I've read stuff about car chargers destroying batteries or not working and stuff, but my friend has this CH102 USB car charger, and insists that 5V to USB is 5V to USB, and that it would work with the phone just fine. I tested it with my iPhone 1, and it seemed to work. Do you think it's okay to use with the iPhone 4? It would be really handy since I'm currently on the road about 10 hours a day.

Thanks.
Click to expand...


I'm no expert but I have always used a car charger. No problems. Apple even makes one for the iPhone. Can't imagine what the problem would be.
 
This USB car charger says the output is 5V - 700mA, whereas the iPhone wall charger says 5V - 1A, which means that the car charger only outputs seven hundred thousandths of what the iPhone wall adapter does (1000mA = 1A). Is that normal, and does it not pose any problems for charging?

I just want to make absolutely certain, since this charger wasn't sold as a specifically "iPhone car charger."
 
StephenCampbell said:
This USB car charger says the output is 5V - 700mA, whereas the iPhone wall charger says 5V - 1A, which means that the car charger only outputs seven hundred thousandths of what the iPhone wall adapter does (1000mA = 1A). Is that normal, and does it not pose any problems for charging?

I just want to make absolutely certain, since this charger wasn't sold as a specifically "iPhone car charger."
Click to expand...

Volts is what matters. Amp is how fast it charges.
 
So if it's USB and 5 volts, it can't harm my battery? Even if it's a $2 charger? It's the CH102, it can be looked up. I'd appreciate it if someone could confirm that it's definitely okay to use. Thanks!
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

I currently use a Griffin Powerjolt SE for my IP4 and it works perfectly fine. From past experiences, however, I can definitely say that as far ar car chargers go, you get what you pay for. For my 3G I simply got a cheap charger to use since I thought it didn't make a difference, right? Well after about 2-3 months I noticed that the battery was not holding a proper charge and would deplete within 5-6 hours even on standby. Issue was with the charger itself. While it was the correct voltage, the poor craftsmanship of it was less than desirable and basically fried my battery. Since then I've made sure that I've gotten good chargers for my phone especially now with my IP4. Since the battery on this is not user replaceable. You'll need to ensure your charger is worth it and skimp out simply bcuz you found an inexpensive charger.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A400 Safari/6531.22.7)

Rajani Isa said:
ephailey said:
I'm no expert but I have always used a car charger. No problems. Apple even makes one for the iPhone. Can't imagine what the problem would be.
Click to expand...

The one you buy at AT&T even has a hidden USB slot if you need to charge your bluetooth if it's USB.
Click to expand...

This is the one that I am using from AT&T, and have not had any battery problems at all.
 
h1r0ll3r said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

I currently use a Griffin Powerjolt SE for my IP4 and it works perfectly fine. From past experiences, however, I can definitely say that as far ar car chargers go, you get what you pay for. For my 3G I simply got a cheap charger to use since I thought it didn't make a difference, right? Well after about 2-3 months I noticed that the battery was not holding a proper charge and would deplete within 5-6 hours even on standby. Issue was with the charger itself. While it was the correct voltage, the poor craftsmanship of it was less than desirable and basically fried my battery. Since then I've made sure that I've gotten good chargers for my phone especially now with my IP4. Since the battery on this is not user replaceable. You'll need to ensure your charger is worth it and skimp out simply bcuz you found an inexpensive charger.
Click to expand...



That griffin costs six bucks on amazon. How much were you paying for your cheaper chargers?
 
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