4 reasons why you shouldn’t use a local third-party smartphone charger, cable or battery
We all know how high the mark-up of original smartphone accessories are: for a fraction of the price, we can buy unofficial China-made accessories that work just the same.
Most of us would be familiar with how slow or fragile third-party accessories are; for example, you can charge a Samsung phone within one hour with a Samsung charger but it might take three hours if it’s a charger you bought from a local shop.
So, what are the dangers of using a third-party accessories?
1. No safety checks or tests
Batteries catching fire that burn down the entire building isn’t new anymore. Major companies like Apple and Samsung would definitely not want their phones to be responsible for the destruction of an entire house, so they’ve spent considerable budget to ensure that their accessories are safe to use. But aftermarket batteries? You can’t even find the brand name, so do you think they give a damn?
2. Cheap third-party chargers can explode
So, with no safety checks, what would it lead to? How about an explosion? Yeah, this happens even in Singapore. Just two years ago, a twenty-five-year-old bought a USB cable from one of these box shops, and guess what? She charged it, went to sleep and “kaboom”: the
adaptor was burnt and it had broken into two pieces.
And that USB cable was bought from Orchard Road.
3. You get what you pay for
If you’ve a third-party charger or cable before, you’ll feel the difference. Like what was mentioned, an
original charger can charge a battery within an hour while a third-party one can only fully charge it after three hours or more. You save twenty dollars but potentially lose hundreds of hours—is it really worth it?
4. The price difference isn’t that much if you think about it
Okay, so a third party
charger costs $4 while an original one costs $30. The price difference seems large. But think again: you’ve spent hundreds of dollars, even maybe a thousand dollars, on the phone. What’s an additional $30 to you? Is it about the number or you just don’t feel justified choosing a more expensive option?