do new phones have to come with a charger?

It’s not the first time we’ve asked the above question in an AW Poll, and that’s what makes it interesting. How has our opinion changed about the charger in new phones in two years?

Charger for new phones

It started with the iPhone X in 2017, but many Android brands have now stopped providing chargers with their new phones. Xiaomi announced in 2020 that the Mi 11 would come without a charger, and Samsung followed suit with the Galaxy S21.

The last company in the list of Android manufacturers is OPPO, which announced the news at the beginning of this month. The fact that OPPO drops the supplied charger is remarkable, since the company is strongly committed to fast charging. And while OPPO phones, like all others, are obliged to work with the USB-PD standard, their own Super VOOC fast chargers come with an even higher power. Those benefits are then only accessible to those who purchase the charger separately.

The main reason why these phone manufacturers say they no longer supply chargers is to reduce e-waste. Most phone users already have a compatible charger, and it’s in danger of ending up in the trash with the arrival of a new adapter. What phone brands talk less about is that they can lower the price of their devices by omitting the charger, making the products more competitive.

AW Poll

In 2020 we already asked our readers whether the charger should remain a fixed value with every new smartphone. At that time, there was only the suspicion that Samsung would omit the charger from the popular S21 series. The question is to what extent the opinion about the topic has changed. Leave your vote in the poll below.