The Pros and Cons of Removing Chargers from Smartphone Boxes

It's always a money thing with these companies. Yes they can get away with not including the charger, but they need to stop with helping the environment doing this process. Anything that saves them money and making money is a win for the manufacturers.

You have to buy another box for the charger, isn't that just more waste? They don't sell the charger without a box.

Technically, it was the fair trade brand Fairphone forcing the trend.

I am totally fine with it. I don't know how many 15 and 25W chargers I have, it is definitely more than I need as they always end up getting bundled with something.

The next trend Fairphone has managed to force will be more interesting for consumers. Genuinely easily repairable devices. Hopefully that'll cut the overpriced screen replacements we see these days. Definitely will make it easier to get a fresh battery.

In my country, Apple is being sued by the state for selling an incomplete product and requiring a separate purchase, which is illegal, thus was indicted for defrauding consumers. When called to court for explanations, Samsung started offering a free charger to the buyers of its phones, which still didn't come with one in the box. Though Samsung followed the letter of their legal agreement, there are complaints that the process is cumbersome and it may take weeks for the charger to be delivered.

I think that any company that restricts certain cables or charging technology to "their" brand, should be obliged to include a cable and a charger.

If we consider Samsung S series and Google Pixel for example, their best speed for charging isn't honestly that impressive and so in this case basically any charger will do. So they could be forgiven for not including it in the box.

Apple on the other hand were forced by the EU to switch to USB-C and then there were rumours of iPhones only working with Apple branded USB-C cables/ chargers or working at a much restricted speed etc. If they want to play this game, then it should be legally mandatory to supply "their" charging equipment in the box.

Oneplus to their credit have always included a charger with the maximum speed possible for the phone to charge out of the box, and we're about two weeks away from finding out if that will continue. Considering that this is one of the selling points of a OnePlus, it would be very silly to change that.

In summary, I think Phones that are locked to one brand of charging technology should be mandated to supply a cable and charger that charges at at least a respectable speed, whereas in the case of most others, it probably doesn't matter that much.

Interesting. Which country?

It keeps chargers out of landfills; or the 10 you already have from becoming 11.

It's certainly a hot topic! The decision to remove charging bricks and cables from smartphone retail boxes has stirred quite a debate.