Difference between wall charger and travel adapter
When we travel to outside, it is not enough to only take charger, we also need to bring power adapter to convert the power for us. Because some place provide different AC Power with our mobile phone requested power parameter, in this case, the charger won’t be workable, and then we need power adapter to help. But both of them have same use field, so what is the difference between wall charger and travel adapter?
What is the wall charger?
Wall charger is the one that is connected to the wall socket and charges your phone. The voltage, frequency and type of the electrical socket vary with different countries. For example the voltage, frequency and the power socket of U.S.A (110Volt, 60Hz) is different from that of U.K (230Volt, 50Hz)
But most of the wall chargers are designed to work between 100 Volts to 240 Volt at 50/60 Hz. They can be used across different countries with the different voltages and frequency. The only difference is the shape of the live and neutral leads in the plug. This shape is different in different countries.
What is the travel adapter?
The travel adapter is small portable electronic devices and electronic and electronic power conversion equipment, usually by the shell, power transformer and rectifier circuit, its output can be divided into AC output and DC- output type; press connection can be inserted into the wall mount and desktop, which widely used in the cordless phone, game console, language repeater, walk man, notebook computers, cellular phones and other digital products.
Most laptop power adapters can automatically detect 100 ~ 240V AC (50/60Hz). Basically all laptop regard the external power supply, with a line and a host connection, so you can reduce the size and weight of the host, only a handful of models built in the power supply within the host.
What are the differences?
A travel adapter is a small volume electronic device. By different output and connection method, travel adapter converts AC current into DC current with low output voltage for a device like camera, speaker, tape etc. which uses to operate 3, 6, 9, 12 volts or whatever.
Right now the wall charger usually accompanies same brand cell phone provided by manufacturer, which are electronic accessories. This kind of charger use electronic semiconductor component, it’s operational principle is converting the irregular frequency AC power to static low voltage DC power ,and also has widely application area, such as cell phone, tablet PC, camera, and other devices.
So the main differences between them are that the travel adapter just does shape conversion while the wall charger supplies power to charge your mobile phone. Current consumer market exist many kinds of brand mobile phone, computer and a series of electric product. Even difference in brand, they have a common characteristic that is operating depends on charger to supply power in electricity situation, and you can choose either wall charger or travel adapter according to your own needs.