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I guess we shouldn't think twice when buying proprietary device, even if overpriced...



You should. This was common with PSU supplies back in the 90s - there were those so called Chinese firecrackers that just blew up and had a concrete brick to give the feeling of weight inside.

Then the market matured a bit and now you have gems like Seasonic and a stable manufacturers like Fortron that in the 2003-5 were with extreme performance for their price.

Don't pay the apple, samsung, MS and whomever tax if you can avoid it. It is unhealthy for the market and for the wallet. Just do a simple research that you are getting a kosher device.


Any tips on how someone who's not familiar with these things can work out what's legit and what's dangerous?


If you buy a charger for $2 on eBay and it's sent from China, it's almost guaranteed to be dangerous. If you buy a $19 charger from Apple, it's going to be as safe as you get. If you buy a cheaper charger from a store like Target, it'll be safe but probably worse power quality. More or less you get what you pay for. (No charger is 100% safe of course; Apple chargers have had recalls and occasional problems.)

I'm the author of the original post and I've torn apart and analyzed a lot of chargers if you want to see the differences between them: http://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-ap...




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