Lost your phone charger again? Perhaps it slipped under the couch, or it’s under all your clothes in the travel bag, or you left it in a hotel you stayed at last weekend. Either way, losing a charger is always upsetting, especially if you’ve spent a decent amount on it.
However, the do-it-yourself furniture giant IKEA thinks it has the answer: a $4 USB-C charger.
A charger you won’t stress over
The charger comes as part of the SJÖSS lineup, which already includes the $7 30W charger and a $24 45W two-port charger. However, the new 20W USB-C charger offers something that others don’t: a price low enough that losing one doesn’t ruin your day.
For comparison, the 25W Anker USB-C charger costs $9.99, while the 20W Belkin USB-C adapter costs $10.85 on Amazon. The closest competitor, a 20W USB-C adapter from Spigen, costs $6.00. Not to mention that Apple’s first-party 20W charger retails for $14.99.
Yes, the IKEA charger isn’t as compact as the Anker, but it weighs slightly less (2.39 oz vs. 2 oz). More importantly, the charger is PD (Power Delivery) compliant, which makes it more versatile. And yes, the charger should work fine with both Android smartphones and iPhones.
For now, it’s only available in a subtle light-green finish, but I’d appreciate it if the company offered it in different colors. The fact that the $4 charger comes from a well-known brand, delivers decently fast charging for modern smartphones, and skips the fancy features altogether, makes it an easy recommendation.
So, you can buy just one of them for your bedroom, or a couple of them for your travel bags, without thinking twice about the price. The box doesn’t come with a USB-C cable, though, so if you don’t already have one, IKEA would ask for a few more dollars.
You get six different color stickers, in case you’re buying a few and want to differentiate yours from your siblings’ or parents’. The $4 IKEA 20W USB-C charger is a no-brainer, especially if you have a habit of leaving your chargers behind. Most recently, the company also released a wireless charger that looks like a donut.