Does Car charger for Droid 4 need at least 850mA?

[New Daddy]

The Verizon Wireless brick shop was trying hard to sell me a >$20 car charger. I steadfastly refused, because I already have a couple of USB car charger from a bluetooth headset and my previous smartphone. Besides, Verizon accessories are overpriced.

To my dismay, neither of my car chargers is able to charge my Droid 4. The only reason I can think of is their output. One of the has an output of 500mA, and the other 750 mA, while the wall charger that came with my Droid 4 has an output of 850mA.

Could this be really the reason? Does Droid 4 require a car charger of strictly 850mA or more? In the past, my other phones and mobile devices were easily charged through these car chargers even though their native wall chargers had higher output.

 

[w1res]

It could be true. I have an older car charger with the proper tip (not sure how much power it can supply) but even with the gps on, screen off, the phone died on a 3 hour drive.

So it might not be that far fetched, even though that is a heck of a lot of power for a phone to pull.

 

[w1res]

Don't know if I made it obvious in my last post, but that was with the charger plugged in!

 

[hashbrownluver]

I'm wondering the same thing i have the car charger for the droid 4 and took a 2 nour trip roundtrip using my navigation playing music etc, phone died and car charger would not charge. I exchanged previous car charger i used with droid 2 global and asked if same charger was the right one. The current car charger being sold for droid 4 from verizon is not strong enough.

Sent from my DROID4 using DroidForums

 

[New Daddy]

I'm the OP, but I think I've found the answer to my own question.

Yes, it indeed looks like Droid 4 needs to be able to draw at least 850mA from a charger, be it a wall charger or a car charger. The two car chargers that I had could supply only up to 500mA and 750mA, respectively. Today, I got a new dual car charger for my iPad that has two outlets - one for 1A and another for 2.1A (the 2.1A is for the iPad).

Surprise, surprise. My Droid 4 was being charged from the 1A outlet, indicating that a generic car charger with sufficient output can charge Droid 4.

 

[kptphalkon]

Great find and yes indeed any sufficiently powerful charger can handle pretty much anything with a micro-usb port.

Quality is another question altogether....those cheap gas station car chargers not only provide the barest minimum of power, but the electricity is often "dirty" or unfilitered from the car's system

 

[fingaz]

I have a griffin dual USB charger and then any useable Micro USB cord and it works great with my phone. I can have music playing, GPS on and everything and my phone still charges. I think its the best deal. Costs $10 and me and my gf can have both of out phones charging at the same time.