Is it safe to use my old Motorola V3 charger with my new Curve

[Hal]

The charger connectors for my old Motorola V3 Razr and my new Curve are the same, and the specs on the chargers are almost identical. Is it safe to use the old charger with the new Blackberry?

Thanks for any advice. 

[nmchileman]

Almost identical? How identical? A couple of digits can mean a world of difference when it comes to stuff like that...

[Hal]

Here's what I've got: 

Motorola

   input: 100-240DV 50/60Hz

   output: 5.0V  550mA

Blackberry

   input: 100-200V 200mA  50-60Hz  11-17VA

   output: 5V 700mA 

[EarthUnderSky]

Well Hal,

The big difference I see is the mA

The voltage is not a big deal but your blackberry battery is probably going to want more current than your Motorola device can give it. Potential safety hazard first of all. Secondly, your making a device work harder than it normally has to. In the long run that battery will suffer the brunt of it all.

Just my opinion.

Didn't the Blackberry come with a charger?

Regards, Michael 

[Hal]

Thanks for this. I appreciate it. Yes, the Curve came with a charger, but I like to have an extra 1 or 2 to park in different spots at home and office. 

I wonder whether the hazard of charging at lower amps (550mA vs. 700mA in this case), could also be a problem when charging the phone with USB cable connected to computer? I don't know what amperage is coming out of my USB port, but it must vary from one computer to the next?

Anyone have an opinion on this? 

[EarthUnderSky]

Wow Hal,

I'm going to eat my words....LOL

Check you USB Hubs out..Follow this..

Open your Control Panel make sure you are in classic view...(I'm running XP by the way)

Select System then select the hardware tab. This should give you a selection for Device Manager.

Open your device manager and then expand your Universal Serial Bus Controller. Now, the number of root hubs depends on how many USB ports your PC was manufactured with. Each root hub correlates to the number of ports. If you right click any one of the root hubs and select properties your pc will show you the USB Root Hub Properties window. Select power tab and this will show you the hub information. 

Mine says....you guessed it ....500mA

LOL

Learn something new every day...

You observe a lot by watching 

[Hal]

Hey, thanks a bunch for this. I might have imagined the power specs for usb hubs were in there somewhere (I'm on XP too), but I didn't dig my way down to device manager. Helpful info.