In case you haven’t heard about it, Apple is currently offering a takeback (trade-in) program for customers who own knock-off iPhone / iPad / iPod chargers. Basically we can go to Apple Store, bring in our third party chargers and we can get Apple original charger for a discount. In Australia, Apple charger’s normal price is AUD 25. The discounted price is AUD 14. In US, discounted charger will cost USD 10. Apple accepts any third party charger and will recycle them. This is a limited-time offer from Aug 16, 2013 to Oct 18, 2013.
To be eligible to buy new USB power adapter with discounted price, customer needs to bring the knock-off charger they have and an iPhone, iPad or iPod. We can “trade-in” one charger for each Apple device we bring. They will register the device’s serial number, to make sure we can’t use the same device again in other stores. This is a simple system to prevent people from abusing this limited offer. So one customer can get multiple chargers on discounted price, as many as iPhone / iPad / iPod he/she owns. Remember that this is a takeback program, so we still need to give Apple one third-party charger for each new charger we want to purchase.
Administration-wise, Apple registers this not as a purchase, but as a repair transaction. They treat it as if our iPhone / iPad / iPod goes to them for a repair, and the result of repair is charger replacement. With the discounted price of chargers appear as repair part fee.
This takeback program originally offered only to US and China customers. Then it was extended to Japan, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Then today Apple expands the country list again, offering this program to customers in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Taiwan.
Why do we need to trade-in our knock-off chargers? Well, there have been lots of publications lately about the danger of some knock-off chargers. There have been some reports about people got electric shock caused by knock-off chargers. Some caused serious injury, some caused instant death.
“I’ve been using cheap charger for X years and never had any problem.”
Never had any problem (yet) does not mean the charger is safe. You don’t want to wait until something actually happens. Especially when sudden death is one of the possible risk. That $10-$20 saving is not worth our life. Well, at least I value my life much higher than that. I don’t know how about you.
Now let’s be fair here. Not all third party chargers are dangerous. Usually, the cheaper ones have higher risk of causing electric shock. But again, ordinary people has no way to actually tell which ones are dangerous and which ones are safe. Basically, if you buy third party charger from a trusted brand, it is most likely safe. If you buy suspiciously-cheap charger, or a charger trying to look like a particular brand (counterfeit), you need to be alerted of the danger.
I went to Apple Store today, bringing two non-branded chargers. Actually I bought these cheap chargers long ago and no longer use it since I learned about the danger few years ago. But now that Apple has this trade-in program, I decided to “use” them to get some extra Apple original charger at lower cost.
And then, here’s the catch. If we buy USB charger for AUD 25 from Apple now, what we will get is a 12W USB power adapter. If we buy original charger from Apple using this trade-in program, what I got are 5W USB power adapters.
What is the difference between 5W, 10W adn 12W chargers? Well, in the basic level, all of them can charge all iDevices (iPod, iPhone, iPad). iPhone draws 5W of power. If we charge it using charger with higher wattage, it will still draw exactly 5W of power. So iPhone can be charged using 5W, 10W or 12W chargers, and the charging time remains the same. Most iPods will draw less than 5W, so any charger are also ok. Some people might tell you that 10W or 12W charger will charge your iPhone faster. I assure you, that’s not the case.
Now, iPad comes with 10W charger from its box. If we charge it using 12W charger, it will charge slightly faster. If we charge it using 5W charger, it can still charge, but slower. How slow? Twice the time required by 10W charger. One exception is iPad mini, which comes with 5W charger from its box.
So higher wattage chargers can charge devices with lower requirements without any problem. And using charger with higher wattage than what the device can draw will not make the process faster. The device will still draw its power based on its specification. Using lower wattage charger on devices with higher requirements is also ok, but it will take longer time to fully charge the device.
I decided to get extra chargers, hoping I would receive 12W chargers (since I have iPad). 12W was my assumption since it’s the only model Apple would sold separately (not bundled with a product). Apparently I was wrong. The ones offered by this trade-in program is 5W. It would be nice if Apple would make it cleared in their website about which charger they are offering on this program.
So, should you consider getting new 5W charger? If your iDevice is iPod or iPhone, and you have knock-off charger(s) at home, I would strongly urge you to get Apple USB original charger. If you have iPad, there’s an additional question you should ask yourself, “do I mind waiting twice the time?”. If yes, get a new charger using this trade-in scheme. If not, just get a new 12W charger on normal price.
Update 19 Sep 2013 : in about a month, one of these chargers stopped working, I took it back to Apple Store, and they replaced it with a new one without question, so it’s all good.
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