I bought a new smart phone this week. As you know, they are not cheap. What you may not know is that they no longer come with a charging device. The cord, yes. The brick that plugs into the wall, no. That is another $20. I haven’t purchased a new phone in almost five years, so I am told this is commonplace now. That doesn’t make it right.
I learned about this problem when I asked my salesperson at the store if everything was in the box needed to charge the phone. He answered every other feasible question in his reply but avoided that one. So I asked again, adding that this was a yes/no question. I did not want to get home and find out I needed to buy something else to charge my phone. He eventually answered and told me I needed to purchase a $20 brick, noting that the manufacturer was not including them as they were trying to avoid waste since many people already have the brick. Sure.
When I looked this up on the world wide web, that excuse was perpetuated with a statement that the omission of the charging brick was “to reduce the environmental impact.” Uh huh.
This scenario reminded me of the time I bought a clothes dryer in our first home, only to learn later than it didn’t come with a power cord. I was baffled that any appliance could be purchased without the necessary cord to operate it. Imaging buying a toaster without a cord. Or a vacuum cleaner. Or a TV set. How about a refrigerator? Or a lamp? Or a hair dryer?
To be fair, some electric ranges, dishwashers and microwaves don’t come with power cords. The reasons, according to the manufacturers, are that electrical codes and regulations vary across regions and that some of these appliances should be hardwired to the home circuit.
Those excuses may be justifiable for some large appliances, but smart phones? The last I looked, I didn’t need to hard wire my phone. And when I buy a product in America, I expect that it will have the appropriate charging plugs for those of us who wave the red, white and blue.
Of course, my old chargers won’t work for the new phone. So I threw them in the box of other cords and chargers and wires that I will seemingly never use. Even with appliances, we are told to not use the old, unsafe cords and to buy new ones. Yep.
So, we buy charging bricks for smart phones separately, and we hopefully realize this before we have the units at home so we don’t have to make separate trips to the store. But if you do have to make another trip, at least you can do a load of laundry while you are gone. Maybe.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
