Droid razr max charger

robert70

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I don't know about standardization or anything else but what I can tell you is that when I use my wife's charger from her d3 my x2 goes nuts, and vice/versa and when I plugged my x2 into the charger for my brothers charger corts his TB my x2 just said!" Screw you " and shut down, and the charger from my old bb tour s brewed up the port on my first x2 so I would say make sure that it is in fact compatable with the phone, you shelled out good money for that phone and sometimes warrenty and insurance wont cover stupid, kinda like driving your vehicle on the ice, as soon as you do your insurance is void.

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TisMyDroid

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Yes, glad you found this info. Without doubt, manufacturers made lots of $$ having a unique charger for their phone and had no interest in making then universal. It was the threat of legislation for the purpose of reducing waste that led to the universalization of phone chargers. With that said, my experience has been that phone manufacturers chargers (lg, Samsung, motorola, HTC) have worked fine for all our phones (we actually have each of those phones and interchange our chargers often) whereas I have had problems with cheap generic chargers.

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FoxKat

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Well here it is...believe it or not. And this went for the United States as well. and i never said they were all concerned. I said they all came to an agreement. . This link is the closest i can find that was argued when the charging port on phones were standardized. Apple was one of the only major players that didnt go through with it. . Standardized mobile phone charger coming to EU—iPhone, too This is not new news. Found another link. http://hothardware.com/News/Phones-Chargers-To-Be-Standardized-In-2011/

Well, looks like I have some egg on my face...

I suppose that we can thank concern for the ecology for the advancement in conservation. This is a good thing but it wasn't started by the companies themselves, and wasn't because they were concerned for the consumer.
It was started by either activists or politicians/public officials who took up the cause.

Sure, the manufacturers signed a "voluntary agreement", though not because they wanted to, but because they were pressured or embarrassed into doing so.

Still, the most important parts of both of the write-ups, is that it hasn't happened yet, and according to the second article we could start to see these newly conforming design phones "early next year". Fortunately for me and the egg on my face, it further validates my claims that the phones we have now and the chargers they use now are not entirely interchangeable and that doing so, at least for phones and chargers manufactured prior to and for the remainder of this year is still a risk.


Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk with voice to text translation. Please excuse minor spelling/grammar/punctuation errors.
 
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TisMyDroid

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Actually, most phone manufacturers began using the universal charging standard in 2009-2011 and committed to complying with that standard by 2012, most likely driven by laws in China and Korea requiring it. Plenty of information regarding the decisions and rationale for the standards. This is just one quick source...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_External_Power_Supply

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FoxKat

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Actually, most phone manufacturers began using the universal charging standard in 2009-2011 and committed to complying with that standard by 2012, most likely driven by laws in China and Korea requiring it. Plenty of information regarding the decisions and rationale for the standards. This is just one quick source...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_External_Power_Supply

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I've actually read all of this and the other ones referenced earlier, but again there is no evidence that this standard had been implemented on devices manufactured to date for distribution in the US. As the second article in the earlier post reads, we can expect these newly conforming devices to begin appearing early next year. This does not mean that any older device which already uses the micro-USB to standard USB-A connector cable (which goes back a while) somehow mysteriously and suddenly becomes compatible with that new universal charger standard. That's like saying that AA batteries which are not meant to be recharged suddenly became rechargeable simply because they fit into the chargers which were designed to charge the new AA Nickel Cadmium and then the later Nickel Metal-Hydride batteries.

And to put a wrap on this discussion, if these phones we have now did confirm to this new (but yet to be implemented) standard in the US, their documentation would indicate so and would not instead say the complete opposite as they do now.

Look, I can admit when I am wrong, and did so by the mention of egg on my face regarding disbelief that such a change could or is coming, but let's not take information relating to an ensuing change in the industry and use it to justify applying the specifications of those ensuing changes to equipment manufactured before that standard has been implemented. That's just crazy.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk with voice to text translation. Please excuse minor spelling/grammar/punctuation errors.
 
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FoxKat

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Yes, glad you found this info. Without doubt, manufacturers made lots of $$ having a unique charger for their phone and had no interest in making then universal. It was the threat of legislation for the purpose of reducing waste that led to the universalization of phone chargers. With that said, my experience has been that phone manufacturers chargers (lg, Samsung, motorola, HTC) have worked fine for all our phones (we actually have each of those phones and interchange our chargers often) whereas I have had problems with cheap generic chargers.

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX using DroidForums

I certainly trend to agree that using a reputable phone manufacturer's charger with another manufacturer's phone, when voltages and amperages are the same minimizes risk of damage, but even in this instance I've found that other reputable phone manufacturers' chargers cause interference with the digitizers and cause the phones to act erratically with at least my OG Droid, D2, and Razr, such as to make them unable to effectively text, type, and even choose or use apps on unless the offending charger is disconnected. If I plug in the one that came with the phone, amazingly...the problem goes away.

As far as using "generic" USB charging blocks, not on my $800 phones, thank you.


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TisMyDroid

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I will never use a generic charger again. Got a cheap one from Amazon when I had my og Droid. Would plug it in at night and while I slept the thing went crazy unbeknownst to me until I etoile up to a million texts. It was possessed! Would text just about everyone and anyone I had ever texted with gobbledygook that no one could read, would call people numerous times throughout the night, when you looked at the screen it would be going crazy. This went on for about a week, several phone calls to Verizon and a trip to the Verizon store but bc I did not know it was the charger, could not create the problem. It was so crazy that my office assistant actually figured out the decoded text which could be read upside down with a bunch of question marks thrown in. I finally caught the phone in action doing it's crazy stuff, frantically was trying to stop it, couldn't even shut the phone down, unplugged it to do a battery pull and it miraculously stopped...hence week long mystery and problem solved. Amazingly enough, it didn't ruin the phone. Needless to say, that charger went into the trash and I pay close attention to my phone whenever I use any other charger new to the phone. So far it appears that manufacturers chargers have worked fine with all our phones.

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jkaod

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FoxKat, You're a fantastic source of information. Thank you for all of your comments. A little tiny bit of egg on the face is OK. I always have bits of food on my face after a good feast...saving it for later.

FWIW, a good friend of mine who has a PhD in electrical engineering confirmed that any GOOD QUALITY cell phone charger should be just fine with any phone. The output amperage listed on the charger is the maximum output that the charger will ALLOW to go to the phone. The electronics in the phone actually determine how much amperage the phone draws while charging. The only problem could come from using a charger with a higher than specified amperage output IF your phone has a defective charging circuit and draws more power than it should. Cheap chargers may have poor connections and thus unstable power supply and could possibly damage the phone.
Final answer is that as long as you are using a good charger from a cell phone manufacturer, it shouldn't matter which one you use.
Remember, advise is usually worth what you pay for it, so make your own choice people. I think all manufacturers will always say: " Only use our charger" . They sell more chargers that way, and that's what it's all about...money.
 

FoxKat

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FoxKat, You're a fantastic source of information. Thank you for all of your comments. A little tiny bit of egg on the face is OK. I always have bits of food on my face after a good feast...saving it for later.

FWIW, a good friend of mine who has a PhD in electrical engineering confirmed that any GOOD QUALITY cell phone charger should be just fine with any phone. The output amperage listed on the charger is the maximum output that the charger will ALLOW to go to the phone. The electronics in the phone actually determine how much amperage the phone draws while charging. The only problem could come from using a charger with a higher than specified amperage output IF your phone has a defective charging circuit and draws more power than it should. Cheap chargers may have poor connections and thus unstable power supply and could possibly damage the phone.
Final answer is that as long as you are using a good charger from a cell phone manufacturer, it shouldn't matter which one you use.
Remember, advise is usually worth what you pay for it, so make your own choice people. I think all manufacturers will always say: " Only use our charger" . They sell more chargers that way, and that's what it's all about...money.

jkaod, your comments and support are certainly appreciated. I try very hard to provide as credible information as possible, and do a ton of research before posting what I conclude to be an accurate representation of the facts and in a manner which is both informational and relatively easy to comprehend. It's nice to know that some of you out there appreciate the honest and concerted efforts I put forth.

In regards to your friend, the PhD, there's no question that a GOOD QUALITY charger as you and he put it (I take to mean one manufactured by a reputable company, preferrably one made specifically for another competing phone), and one that matches closely the voltage of the OEM charger, as well as one that also closely matches the current of the OEM charger is most likely safe to use. The devil is in the details. The average joe/jane Android phone buyer knows little if any about voltages/amperages, and even more importantly about failures of devices caused by their innocent mistakes and the warranties they will then try to use to resolve those failures and how easily they can be voided.

I am willing to go out on a limb here and say that the overwhelming percentages of "bad battery" claims which have resulted in phones being replaced under warranty were due to nothing more than user-error. The statistics of the number of so-called "bad batteries" being tested good by manufacturers (approaching 90%), goes to prove that thoery. This of course includes things such as ROM flashing, Bloatware freezing or deleting, poor programming by Devs, poor configuration of the phone's scheduling of access to data by the user, bad charge & discharge practices of the user, and so many other non-battery/charger specific problems, that putting all the blame on chargers that are incompatible would be foolish on my part.

Still there are the minor annoyances that these, we'll call them "less than 100% compatible" chargers may bring, such as the ones described by TisMyDroid and so many others with "ghost typing" which are likely brought on by either poor filtering of RF interference and/or residual AC ripple. More poigniant are the potentially major issues such as batteries overheating, the internal charging components of the phone being abused and potential failure of them resulting in downline failure of the battery, errors in the charging and monitoring of voltages from the "dirty power", etc. Any flutter imparted into a DC circuit causes stress and heat buildup on certain DC based components and can trigger early failure.

The issue of erratic digitizers may only be a very minor visible indication of a far more damaging effect which could result in incorrect charging or worse, failure to cut off current to the battery when it may have reached the threshold voltage because the meter reports inaccurately, potentially putting the battery at risk of full-blown melt-down due to internal shorting caused by "plating" (http://lithiumbatteryresearch.com/Plating.php ).

It will be interesting to see how the industry and the end-user will deal with the coming sweeping change to a USB Charger standard, since as I'm sure you know, there will always be manufacturers out there who are out of reach for retribution and will do the minimum required to get an inferior product to market. It will be a time of increased finger-pointing as those inferior chargers are blamed for increased failures of "the new standard" devices meant to accept those chargers. In the end, we all suffer because the increased warranty claims and potential increased litigation and possible settlements as well as injuries or worse will only server to drive costs for everyone higher.

Not to disagree with you specifically, but to raise one important point...to say that all manufacturers are interested in is money and that this is the reason they recommend only their chargers is to ignore the entire insurance industry. These manufacturers are under extremely heavy scrutiny by the insurance industry as well as consumer and government watchdogs not only to be sure their products meet or exceed specifications, but even more importantly to be sure that they are safe for consumers and essentially "idiot-proof". Without having tight control on things such as the power going in, how can they defend themselves in a court if an injury should result?

Insurance companies are interested in money, perhaps even more than the manufacturers themselves, since money (or the protection of same) IS their product. I have been in the Financial Services industry for over 23 years, and started working in the insurance industry. I suggest that perhaps the largest driving factor to mandating their own chargers is not to increase profit directly through the sale of those chargers, but so they can keep insurance costs to a minimum and that relates back to control. Didn't your phone come with a charger? I know mine did, and if so, then where's the increased profit? They could have gotten essentially the same price for the phone when all is said and done if there were no charger supplied and you had to buy one off the shelf at the retail or online store. Your car doesn't come with a lifetime of gas either, yet I don't hear anyone complaining.

In the end, if you give the keys of your vehicle to an inexperienced and improperly credentialed driver and allow them to take the wheel completely, you are almost assuredly setting yourself up for failure at some point. Same, I'll argue will be the course with the new "standard", since I believe it places far too much due diligence on the consumer and removes a layer of much needed protection.
For now, I'll stay with my Motorola Approved OEM charger while I simply sit back and enjoy the show. :popcorn:
 
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jkaod

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You sound just like my friend. About half of that flew so far over my head that it didn't even mess up what little hair I have left. When he starts throwing his electronic jargon around, my eyes glaze over.

You're right that this is in large part driven by the insurance aspect of it. All companies are interested in the bottom line, but there are many factors that influence that. If they said it OK to use any old charger you want, people would end up using crummy stuff that supplies "dirty power" and that would end up in a lot of bad phone complaints on forums like this which would make the companies product look inferior. It's in their best interest to have people use a good charger for many reasons.
Like you, I only use a Motorola charger on my phone, but not always the exact one that came with the phone. They aren't that expensive as compared to a $700 phone.
 

FoxKat

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You sound just like my friend. About half of that flew so far over my head that it didn't even mess up what little hair I have left. When he starts throwing his electronic jargon around, my eyes glaze over.

Sorry... :frown:
 

jkaod

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Sorry... :frown:

No problem! I'm used to having my eyes glaze over when I talk to computer or electrical engineers. I've even learned how to take a nice nap when he's talking to me about technical stuff...and he can't even tell. My trick is that I always wear my dark glasses when I talk to him.;)

Seriously, thanks for all of your input.
 

kellygh5

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I am one of those Android users who has given about 2 secs of thought to voltage/amp. I have been using a G'Nex charger to charge the Maxx. My Maxx did not come with a charger, because it is a replacement after 4 G'Nex. We recently went on vacation, and I forgot my charger. I used my husbands Samsung Charge or Blackberry charger for 4 days. The past 2 days, I have gotten not so great battery life. Could I have already damaged my phone? I have been waiting until the 15% left to power off and charge to 100%. Should I ditch the G'Nex charger & get a moto? Any way to repair potential damage? My phone needs to be charged about 4-5 hrs sooner than has been typical. Thanks!
 
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altspeed

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I've gotta tell you razr folk...if you don't have a p893 get one...$40 will literally keep your phone at 20-30% at body temp for hours while streaming/surfing..moto p893 portable power pack rules

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FoxKat

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I am one of those Android users who has given about 2 secs of thought to voltage/amp. I have been using a G'Nex charger to charge the Maxx. My Maxx did not come with a charger, because it is a replacement after 4 G'Nex. We recently went on vacation, and I forgot my charger. I used my husbands Samsung Charge or Blackberry charger for 4 days. The past 2 days, I have gotten not so great battery life. Could I have already damaged my phone? I have been waiting until the 15% left to power off and charge to 100%. Should I ditch the G'Nex charger & get a moto? Any way to repair potential damage? My phone needs to be charged about 4-5 hrs sooner than has been typical. Thanks!

Kelly,

Any "damage" you could possibly do to the battery by using the other chargers mentioned is simply that they may not have completely saturated the battery during charge yet the meter thinks the battery was full on one or more of those charge cycles, so now when you hit "100%", you may actually be only at 85% for instance. This would result in the phone "seemingly" losing power quicker than normal and if you tend to get nervous about charging before the "low battery" indicator pops up, it would appear that you aren't getting the same run time as before.

The fact is you likely did absolutely no damage to the battery and also no irreparable "damage" to the charging and metering circuit. The simple fix is exactly what you are doing now, except that you should start by charging to 100% with power off FIRST>>>THEN drain to 15%, and repeat charge to 100% with power off. As described and illustrated in www.batteryuniversity.com, The phone looks for the high flag level first, then the low flag level is set when it hits 15%, and then the high flag is set when it hits 100% the second time.

If you don't do the first saturation charge with power off to 100%, it will ignore the new low flag at 15% and you won't accomplish your goal on that discharge cycle. Then when you charge to 100% afterwards, it would start looking for the 15% low point after that first 100% charge. If you never get there, the low flag won't be set and the high flag won't be set either. Result...the problem wouldn't go away.

No matter where you are in charge level, always start this process with a 100% charge with power off first, then the discharge cycle, followed by a repeat of the charge cycle to 100% with power off and you can't go wrong.

Good luck!
 
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