Drawing inspiration from the likes of Apple and more so from Samsung, smartphone maker Realme has announced that it will not ship a charging brick in the box.
This Oppo-offshoot recently introduced the Realme Narzo 50 Prime in Indonesia where the retail box did not carry a charging brick. Now the company has revealed that the same will be followed when the phone launches in India.
The company said that this decision has been taken with a focus on sustainability and an attempt to bring down its carbon emission.
However, it seems that the company wants to remain cautious and has hinted that this decision will not impact important phones like the Realme GT 2 Pro or the Realme 9 4G slated to launch later this week.
Apple and Samsung, on the other hand, started this the other way around. Both the companies ditched the charger from the retail box of their flagship phones. While the budget and affordable lineup of Galaxy phones have only very recently been impacted by this decision.
In a bid to justify its decision, the company says that users have a lot of 10W chargers lying around in their homes and by not shipping another charging brick, the company wants to “give back to the planet.”
Though most budget Android phones, barring a few, support faster-charging standards – even the Realme Narzo 50 Prime comes with support for 18W charging. Hence the 10W bricks will be useless on this phone and users might be forced to buy a separate one from the company or might end up using third-party chargers which are easily available at the nearby mobile shop.
Why replicating Apple might be difficult for Android phone makers?
While the companies may argue that skipping a charger might be helpful for the environment, most users think otherwise. We also will not get into this debate, at least as of now, and will try to understand how the scenario is different from the Apple side of things.
iPhones have been using slow charging standards and you can use the same charging brick for all the phones. This doesn’t hold true for Android phones, especially the ones made by Chinese brands.
Not only do these phones come with ultra-fast charging solutions that have made power banks redundant but their charging standards are proprietary. This means that even though you have a spare OnePlus WarpCharger at your home, you might not be able to fast charge your Xiaomi phone. And vice versa.
Hence, you will be forced to purchase a new charger. Moreover, purchasing a new charger means using additional packaging materials (right from manufacturing to the delivery) which in turn defies the original reason given by the brands.
Also, it will mean additional expenses for the customer which in a country like India, where users alter their purchasing decision for just a few rupees, might be a huge deterrent.
