You told us: Charging standards are super important when shopping devices

Charging your smartphone is an essential daily process, so understanding the protocols involved is pretty important. Modern smartphones support various protocols, from the widely accepted USB-PD to proprietary solutions from specific OEMs. But do you consider which charging standards a device supports before buying them? It’s a question we posed in a recent poll. Read on for the results.

Do you take charging standards into account when buying gadgets?

Results

This poll fell just short of 1,300 votes after it went live on November 10. Results suggest that most readers do consider charging standards before buying a device. While 30.6% believe charging standards are “nice to have” but not essential, 50.5% of readers see them as a “must.” This means over four in every five readers consider charging standards to some degree before purchasing a new piece of tech.

See also: The best wall chargers you can buy

However, some readers don’t consider charging standards at all. Just under 19% of respondents fall into this category, suggesting that other factors, specs, or features are more important.

Your comments

• Drone9: I’m more interested in whether it comes with a charger, or is the OEM trying to rip me off.
• AS: Shouldn’t have to. Tech giants should all be sharing their work to make better products for everyone.
• mejustsayin: As long as there is wireless charging, I really don’t care about standards.
• gold mine bros: Personally, 18 watts is good enough for me, anything more is a bonus. As for wireless, 10 watts minimum.
• Nick V: Personally, I don’t want a phone that charges too fast because of battery degradation and heat that hurts the internals. I am not for slow charging, but “sensible” charging.
• Shizuma: Really I feel we need a law that if a company decides to not put a charger in the box then they are required to use the standard USB-PD charging standard and not their own stupid proprietary standards as the whole different charging standards weren’t as bad before as you knew the boxed charger would work right, but now you don’t have that.

That’s it for this poll. Thanks for your votes and comments. If you have any thoughts about the results or charging standards, be sure to drop a comment below.