The truth behind why Xiaomi and Apple don’t provide chargers

     "All they say is ideology, but all they care about is business." This sentence is the most accurate way to describe some mobile phone brands. After Apple stopped including chargers with watches and mobile phones in the name of "environmental protection," the Pandora's box of mobile phones not including chargers was opened. Although major brands initially complained about Apple's stinginess in a joking tone, they secretly discussed the possibility of canceling the included charger. Samsung, which we are familiar with, is one of them.

　　Just after making fun of Apple for being "stingy" with chargers, the company immediately caught up with the years-long environmental protection process as if to meet its year-end performance goals, deleting posts while announcing that its next-generation flagship phone, the Galaxy S21, will not come with a charger.

　　Coincidentally, the Xiaomi 11 released some time ago also removed the charger from the packaging. However, considering that most domestic consumers do not buy into this kind of "environmental protection", Xiaomi did not simply and rudely ask us to pay extra for the charger. Instead, it thoughtfully provided two versions with exactly the same price, one with a charger and one without a charger, for users to choose from.

　　Why are you so critical of the charger?

　　It is foreseeable that the vast majority of consumers will choose the Xiaomi 11 set that comes with a charger. After all, I can’t think of any reason not to buy a charger other than the set is out of stock. Ever since Apple cancelled the charger in the Apple Watch S6, this practice has been widely criticized online. However, Apple not only did not change its mind, but chose to "fight to the end" with consumers and cancelled the included headphones for the iPhone 12. Only in the French market, it was forced to include a charger for legal reasons.

　　Xiaomi, which is at the center of the controversy, has provided two versions, one with a charger and one without a charger. It has used a similar approach to "boiling a frog in warm water" to subtly change consumers' psychological cognition, making them realize that "this charger is an extra gift" and preparing for the subsequent complete cancellation of chargers. Since Xiaomi has chosen to "subtly" change consumer cognition, why does Xiaomi 11 still arouse the disgust of many users, and the discussion heat even surpasses the "originator" iPhone 12?

　　First of all, people have always been dissatisfied with the iPhone charger, and many people even call it "electronic garbage." Indeed, the phone supports 18W fast charging, but is only willing to provide a slow charger commonly known as "5W 1A". Although this can save costs, it affects the company's reputation.

　　Just like the joke goes, "You don't want the five benefits and one safety? Then I will cancel the charger now"; providing an included charger costs money and will get you criticized, while not including a charger means you don't have to spend money but will get you criticized, so why not choose the one that doesn't cost money?

　　In the history of iPhone, almost every iPhone user has purchased a higher-speed charger, or directly used an iPad charger to do the job. Because the "Five Blessings and One Safety" has broken the bottom line of everyone's tolerance for chargers, from "I can do without it but you can't" to "I'd rather not have it"; so although Apple's cancellation of the charger caused an uproar in the industry, it did not affect consumers' purchasing decisions, but instead gave them a sense of "relief".

　　In other words, if you cancel something I don't want, I have no objection; but for a number of mobile phone brands that use ultra-high-speed fast charging, this charger is not comparable to "electronic waste".

　　You can't live without it, I can't live without it

　　To give an extreme example, OnePlus 3T was a phone I loved very much when I was in college. With the 5V4A Dash fast charging technology, the phone could be charged to nearly 60% in half an hour. But this Dash fast charging is not a public charging standard, and OnePlus 3T does not support the most common QC3.0 fast charging technology at the time, which means that once I go out without a dedicated charger, I can only use the most basic 5V1.7A slow charging.

　　Back to Xiaomi 11, it was mentioned at the press conference that Xiaomi 11 supports 55W wired fast charging, which is obviously a very outstanding achievement. But if we look closely at the configuration table, it is not difficult to find that the 55W fast charging technology of Xiaomi 11 is based on Xiaomi's 11V charge pump technology. From the detailed configuration of the package charger, we can also see that this 55W charger supports four different working combinations, namely 5V3A, 9V3A, 11V5A and 20V2.5A, of which 5V and 9V are common charging voltages for mobile phones and tablets, and 20V is also commonly used in laptops.

　　But the problem lies in this 11V - all signs indicate that the 55W fast charging, an important selling point of Xiaomi 11 in terms of charging, is not based on a common PD public charging standard, nor can you buy a PD charger for 30 or 40 yuan in the Xiaomi Mall like the iPhone to charge at full power. Yes, Xiaomi 11 provides a "free charger" option, but what about next time? When the future Xiaomi 12 is equipped with a higher-power private fast charger, who can guarantee that Xiaomi will still "provide" a charger for free?

　　In other words, the reason why the "charger dispute" of Xiaomi 11 has caused heated discussions is not that the charger is not included, but that "full-power fast charging is not possible without a dedicated charger." In other words, the fundamental contradiction lies in the standard of the charger.

　　Difficulties in unifying charging standards

　　To list them in detail, the more common charging standards on the market now include PD, QC4, Xiaomi's MiCharge Turbo, Huawei's SCP, OPPO's SuperVOOC, OnePlus' Warp, vivo's Super FlashCharge, etc. Among them, except for the PD protocol from USB and the limited open QC4 of Qualcomm, other charging protocols are almost incompatible with each other.

　　The reason for this "hundred schools of thought" situation is that in order to improve the competitiveness of their products, various brands have adopted various methods to launch an arms race in the field of fast charging: today you break through 100W, tomorrow I will push it to 120W, this week you wireless charging reaches 40W, next week I will take out 50W. At the same time, different brands use different technologies, and for commercial considerations, it is naturally impossible to open them to "friendly companies" for reference.

　　Let me start with my opinion. Although I prefer wireless charging anytime and anywhere, I still hold a positive attitude towards high-power fast charging. From another perspective, this fast charging arms race has made mobile phone fast charging "separate". This kind of split was not a problem in the past, because in order to attract users, various brands packed their latest and fastest chargers in the box; but in 2020, when various brands played the environmental protection card and cancelled the included chargers one after another, the disadvantages of the charging standard split also emerged.