What is the Best Phone Charger for Uber Drivers and Lyft Drivers
The phone charger is one of the most important item an Uber driver or Lyft driver should have. The Uber/Lyft driver app and GPS navigation uses a lot of battery power to operate. Some drivers in the past complained that their car charger would not charge their phones fast enough before the Lyft/Uber driver app drained their battery. iPhone users tend to be slightly better off due to better battery management, but many Android users have had phone charging issues.
I had the Samsung Galaxy S4 when I first started driving on Lyft. The current phone charger I had couldn’t keep up so I got two high amperage chargers. I had two chargers that were rated 2A, but only one of them charged my phone properly. When I used another charger, it would not increase my battery charge when I was on Uber or Lyft with the GPS navigation on. I only had one car at the time, so I only had my good charger in the car, which charged my phone properly.
When I upgraded to the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, the good 2A charger would charge the phone very slowly when I was using the Lyft and Uber apps with GPS navigation. There was one morning I forgot to charge my phone the night before and it took my phone 6 hours to fully charge while I was on Lyft and Uber. Keeping your phone charged is always important since you would be able to use your phone when you’re outside of the car. Sometimes, I go out after driving on Lyft or Uber for a few hours and there were a few times where my phone would only be half charged, forcing me to drastically reduce my phone usage.
Last year, I started doing on-demand delivery such as Amazon and Instacart. I would often drive for a few hours in the morning on Lyft and Uber and then switch over to deliveries, which requires using your phone outside of the car. There were a few times where I didn’t have enough battery charge after driving on Lyft and Uber to do Instacart. I was carrying a second phone around and I was lucky enough to have it and use it when my primary phone’s battery died in the middle of an order on Instacart. Once that happened, I went to look for a better phone charger.
Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 (or 3.0)
Most newer Android phones should have this feature. The Samsung S6 was the first Samsung phone to officially support it, despite having the correct hardware in the Samsung S5. Quick Charge (2.0 and 3.0) is a feature from Qualcomm and is integrated into the Qualcomm radio chip. Quick Charge 2.0 can fully charge a phone in about an hour, which is amazing. It claims to be able to charge a phone about 50% in about 15 minutes. The quick charge feature is most beneficial to delivery drivers, but it is still very useful for Lyft and Uber Drivers. Quick Charge 3.0 won’t necessarily charge phones much quicker, but Qualcomm claims to charge your phone more efficiently. Not even the new Samsung S8 have Quick Charge 3.0 (only 2.0), but there are plenty of Android phones that support QC 3.0.
Despite iPhones having the same Qualcomm chip, none of the iPhones support Quick Charge, but they can charge quickly at around 2A.
What about Turbo Charging on Motorola?
Turbo Charging is Motorola’s term for Quick Charging. In essence, turbo charging is the same as Quick Charge. In most cases, turbo charging is just another name for Quick Charge 2.0 so if you have a newer Motorola phone, you should be able to get a Quick Charge 2.0 charger. If you want to future proof your charger, you can get a Quick Charge 3.0 charger for a few dollars more.
Which Car Charger Should You Get?
The first thing to do is search for a Quick Charge 2.0 car charger if you have an Android phone. If you want to spend a few more dollars, you can get a QC 3.0 charger, but make sure your phone supports it. There seems to be few difference between QC 2.0 and QC 3.0, unless your phone tends to overheat while charging. If it does and your phone is compatible with QC 3.0, get a QC 3.0 charger. I have been testing them over the past few months and here are my recommendations. They are mostly based on price since all of them seem to work similarly.
Quick Charge 3.0 Car Chargers
Quick Charge 3.0 Dual Car Charger ($20)
This dual USB car charger has two Quick Charge 3.0 ports so you can charge both phones quickly. It is a little pricey compared to the below option, but this is great if you often have a second passenger (spouse, partner, coworker, friend) in your car.
Quick Charge 3.0 Car Charger ($15)
While this charger has two USB ports, there is only one Quick Charge 3.0 port. There is a second USB port that can charge up to 2.4A, which is fairly quick for most non-quick-charge compatible phones.
Anker Quick Charge 3.0 Car Charger ($25)
This is the most expensive charger on the list, but it is from a trusted name in USB charging. While I personally have the above two chargers and they work fine, some drivers may prefer getting something from Anker.
Quick Charge 2.0 Chargers
Quick Charge 2.0 Dual Car Charger ($15)
This is the same price as the Quick Charge 3.0 car charger. This one is different in that it has TWO Quick Charge 2.0 ports, while the Quick Charge 3.0 Car Charger above only has one QC 3.0 and another 2.4A charger. I would go with this dual QC 2.0 charger since QC 3.0 isn’t that much better than QC 2.0.
What about iPhone or iOS?
If you have an iPhone or any iOS device, make sure to get a charger that can support 5V/2A charging and it should be sufficient to charge your iPhone or iPad quickly.
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