Fundamental Difference Between Charging A Smartphone At The Mains & Via USB Cable Linked To A Desktop PC or iMac?

Question

As a smartphone maybe considered to be a "mini computer in your pocket", I thought this maybe appropriate to ask here.

If you are working at a desktop PC or iMac and there is also a mains socket close at hand, is there any difference (in any respect) to charge a smartphone via USB cable linked to the computer or is it more advisable to charge via a charger to the mains socket.

eg

• Is there a difference in the time taken to charge using one method than the other ?
• If using the computer to charge, does it cause the computer to use more RAM in the process ?

Answer 1

Usually a dedicated charger will be able to supply higher current and charge the phone faster than the PC

RAM effect would be negligible,though technically non zero, since while you do have an additional device connected, unless you have some PC Suite type software loading because of it, an additional device wont really use any significant amount RAM

Answer 2

Use the wall! In extremely rare cases, charging by PC can cause some issues, I have seen it break some software because the phone re-assigns com ports (The software's fault, not the phone) or the PC sees it as a boot device, and can not boot from the phone and throws a boot error message.

And as stated, the wall will consistently use higher current, reducing charge times. On a laptop, it will extend your laptop battery life.

Lastly, this one just bothers me, but you will get errors about "This device should be plugged into a USB 2 port" despite using a USB port, it doesn't really cause issues, but the message in the balloon bothers me.