Spigen PD Fast USB-C Wall Charger and third party cables

[NewBench]

Need to buy a new 20w USB-C charger and lightning cable, but before I drop £19 on an Apple 20w wall plug and another £19 on an Apple USB-C cable, I noticed that Spigen make a (universal) PD USB-C fast charger compatible with iPhones. Currently just under £11 on Amazon UK. I know it says up to 27w and that iPhones will only use 20w.

I'm sure I read somewhere that third party 'fast' USB-C chargers and/or third party lightning cables have caused problems with iPhones, iPhone batteries etc. Any truth to this? Spigen are a fairly big accessories brand so I wouldn't expect complete trash but I've never bought their products before.

• Does anyone have any experience of using this charger, or a third party USB-C fast charger?
• If I was to use a 'good' quality third party USB-C to lightning cable with a charger like this, would it be okay or am I likely to encounter issues at some point compared to Apple ones?

Thanks

 

[Motionblurrr]

Dang I feel like this question is perfect for me to answer lol.

Because I recently upgraded my iPhone charging gear from using my old trusty (1st gen!) iPad 10W charger I’ve used for years paired with an aftermarket Anker 6ft USB cable. I had no problem with this set up but I wanted to catch up in terms of speed and since batteries in iPhones are getting larger and larger—this is a good thing.

I did tons of research on power bricks, cables, the internals of these products (watching tear downs of cables and power bricks), tests of speed, tests of how clean of a power delivery each brick gives, any noise (yes lol some power bricks actually have an audible whine while charging) and I came to this conclusion:

If you’re starting over with a powerbrick + cable and don’t mind paying the money: absolutely get the Apple 20W brick and Apple USB-C cable. They’re both higher quality, quiet and much safer compared to third party. Amazon brands have good marketing but they’re in no way as safe, silent, have as a clean delivery of power or “talk” to your Apple products like Apple’s own gear does.

I actually had an Anker “nano” charger and that piece of junk got HOT on the wall outlet. Like if you touched it you’d be like wow this is actually pretty hot. The aftermarket cables are ok but I’ve had Anker cables actually stop charging for no reason even without a bend or tear in the cable.

This might be placebo but at one point when I switched to a 3rd party (Anker) charger and cable, I felt like my iPhone got hotter while being charged and the battery health degraded much faster than Apple’s stuff.

Also, the fact that the Apple 20W charger is now only $19 vs the previous 18W charger was sold at $39–it’s a no brainer! Go OEM!

 

[NewBench]

Dang I feel like this question is perfect for me to answer lol.

Because I recently upgraded my iPhone charging gear from using my old trusty (1st gen!) iPad 10W charger I’ve used for years paired with an aftermarket Anker 6ft USB cable. I had no problem with this set up but I wanted to catch up in terms of speed and since batteries in iPhones are getting larger and larger—this is a good thing.

I did tons of research on power bricks, cables, the internals of these products (watching tear downs of cables and power bricks), tests of speed, tests of how clean of a power delivery each brick gives, any noise (yes lol some power bricks actually have an audible whine while charging) and I came to this conclusion:

If you’re starting over with a powerbrick + cable and don’t mind paying the money: absolutely get the Apple 20W brick and Apple USB-C cable. They’re both higher quality, quiet and much safer compared to third party. Amazon brands have good marketing but they’re in no way as safe, silent, have as a clean delivery of power or “talk” to your Apple products like Apple’s own gear does.

I actually had an Anker “nano” charger and that piece of junk got HOT on the wall outlet. Like if you touched it you’d be like wow this is actually pretty hot. The aftermarket cables are ok but I’ve had Anker cables actually stop charging for no reason even without a bend or tear in the cable.

This might be placebo but at one point when I switched to a 3rd party (Anker) charger and cable, I felt like my iPhone got hotter while being charged and the battery health degraded much faster than Apple’s stuff.

Also, the fact that the Apple 20W charger is now only $19 vs the previous 18W charger was sold at $39–it’s a no brainer! Go OEM!

Think you've convinced me to stick with Apple and just pay up! Thanks

 

[Motionblurrr]

Think you've convinced me to stick with Apple and just pay up! Thanks

You're welcome!

Another thing: If you're going with an official Apple USB-C cable, grab the 6' Apple USB-C cable because it's actually higher quality and beefier than the standard 3' cable.

Also a tip: always grab the Apple cable by the shiny white plastic part and pull it out that way. Your cables will last much longer this way!