Buyer beware when it comes to buying a charger for your phone/ipod/whatever-gadget.  Two incidents in two days happened in Australia, one of them turning fatal.  The cheap chargers sold on Ebay, Amazon and in some stores are extremely dangerous.

 

First Incident

 

Second Incident

 

Here is an example of one of these dangerous chargers.

 

---

There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Chargers are supposed to be cheap. What they are not supposed to be is overpriced (Apple), or electrocuting people.

---

They also cause problems with cars, I see it all the time, the cheaply made chargers blow out auxiliary power fuses all day long. 

---

Chargers are supposed to be cheap. What they are not supposed to be is overpriced (Apple), or electrocuting people.

 

While a genuine Apple charger might be a bit more expensive, I wouldn't necessarily call them "over priced".  I would gladly pay a few more dollars for a genuine, tested and safe product.  A "cheap" charger... well as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.  I would rather not risk damage to my equipment, or more importantly injury or possible death just to save a few dollars.

---

There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

They also cause problems with cars, I see it all the time, the cheaply made chargers blow out auxiliary power fuses all day long. 

Just think about that for a bit.  A fuse is put in a circuit to protect against an over-current condition.  Current is the electrical property that can kill a person.

---

There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

While a genuine Apple charger might be a bit more expensive, I wouldn't necessarily call them "over priced".  I would gladly pay a few more dollars for a genuine, tested and safe product.  A "cheap" charger... well as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.  I would rather not risk damage to my equipment, or more importantly injury or possible death just to save a few dollars.

That's all good, but a big reason people buy these chargers is because the genuine one breaks and they feel like Apple is ripping them off. I don't really use Apple products so its not an issue for me. But back in the day I had their original shuffle and their cheap charger broke within months. I think they wanted over half I paid for the shuffle to replace it. Just one of the many reasons Apple left a bad impression on me. I bought a cheap one from China that was way better. They since improved the design and I haven't had much charger issues with the Apple devices I have now, but I hardly ever use them.

---