Jim Rossman: Wired or wireless? Which way should you charge your phone?

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

When it comes to charging your phone, is it better to use a wired or wireless charger?

Does it even make a difference?

The vast majority of phones sold today have a USB-C charging port. Apple was really the last holdout, as they used Lightning ports to charge, but our friends in the European Union mandated that all phones sold in Europe had to have a USB-C port to charge. This ruling forced Apple to change, and they introduced USB-C to the iPhone and iPad.

Apple and Samsung and Google have also included Qi wireless charging to their handsets. Apple took the additional step of including some magnets to help users perfectly position their phones on the wireless chargers. Apple calls their iteration of wireless charging MagSafe.

The magnets are also very handy for phone mounts. A lot of companies have included magnets in their car mounts.

The one thing to know about charging options is that wired charging will usually be faster than wireless charging. So if you need to top off in a hurry, grab the wire.

Chargers of both types can vary in speed depending on the amount of power provided by the USB charger they are using. You want to pay attention to the watts provided to each port by charger and choose one with enough power to charge as fast as possible.

When I’m buying USB chargers these days, 30 watts is my minimum, but 45 watts is where I’m comfortable. This is for one port. If you want to buy a multiport charger, look to brands you’ve heard of like Anker. They have a 140-watt 4-port charger that can fast-charge all your gear at the same time.

You’ll never get great charging speeds out of a wireless charger, so I use those in places like my car or my nightstand, where I’m parking my phone for more than a few minutes while I drive or sleep.

One other consideration is heat. Wireless chargers generate more heat than wired charging.

Heat won’t do much to hurt your daily battery run time But batteries like to be cool; spending more time on warm wireless chargers mean the batteries will have a shorter lifespan before they need replacing. But it might be several years before you’ll notice.