Apple has dumped a charging brick along with the wired earphones from the box of the latest iPhone 12 and the Apple Watch Series 6. The company, however, includes a USB-C to Lightning cable in the box along with the phone. Apple did this to reduce electronic waste. According to Apple, there are already 700 million lightning headphones out in the world, as well as 2 billion Apple power adapters.
So what to do now when you buy your new iPhone and there’s no charging brick to juice it up? Well, Apple assumes you already have a charger from the previous iPhone. The problem is that it’s a USB-A ordinary charging port that most smartphones use. So it won’t work with the included USB-C-to-lightning cable that comes with the iPhone 12. This means you’ll either have to use an existing USB-A-to-lightning cable and plug it into the old USB-A adapter or buy a new USB-C Adapter and use the new USB-C to Lightning cable that ships in the box. Confused? Don’t be. Summarily, you can’t use the iPhone 12 cable in the box with your old charging brick—except for the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max charging bricks.
1. 20W USB-C Power Adapter
Apple announced a 20W USB-C Power Adapter going for $19 on the Apple website. The company says it charges your iPhone to 50% in just 30 minutes. You can use it to fast charge 11-inch iPad Pro and 12.9-inch iPad Pro (3rd generation) as well as iPhone 8 and later. USB-C to Lightning cable is sold separately.
2. Aukey Omnia Mini 20W PD Adapter
If you don’t go for Apple’s 20W USB-C USB-C adapter, you should consider the even cheaper but equally great Aukey Omnia Mini 20W USB-C Power Delivery (PD) charger. It’s compatible with the newly released iPhone 12/12 mini/Pro/Pro Max as well as the older iPhones up to model 8. It supports Power Delivery 3.0 as well as Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 with 20W power output. This means it can charge the iPhone 3 times faster than the original 5W charging brick. A USB-C-to-lightning cable is not included.
3. Aukey Swift 30W 2-port iPhone fast charger
4. Anker PowerPort III 20W USB-C charger
5. SELECTID Mini USB-C PD 30W Charger
So then, whether you want fast-charging up to 3 times for your existing iPhone 11 or a charging brick for your new iPhone 12, these USB-C PD chargers are great options. Remember, you need a USB-C-to-lightning cable which is normally sold separately from the charging brick.
