Power Bank Battery Chargers - Experience and Advice

Telegraph_Sam

Can anyone share any advice on "power bank" battery chargers?  I have an old Doro 409 mobile which may have an intermittent faulty charging connection via its round jack point.. Charging cradles for this model seem to be unavailable. I had the idea of purchasing a power bank battery charger with the aim of being able to charge the battery independently. Some e Bay sellers are more forthcoming than others about whether their device is compatible with my 409 Doro (does "all Doros" mean "all Doros"?), or is a battery a battery? Then more specifically I discovered that there are "wireless power banks" but here I suspect the question of compatibility is even more relevant. Do you just put the mobile on top of the wirelesss charger and the "power waves" flow through the casing regardless and without need to remove the battery?  This could be the ideal solution - or just a pipe dream as far as old mobiles are concerned. Tks.

PHK

Power Banks still need to be plugged into the phone to charge the battery, so wouldn't help if there is a fault with the charging connector.

Wireless charging only works with phones which are designed to be charged wirelessly. They won't charge phones thar don't have the capability.

Telegraph_Sam

Your second point makes sense.  But you see power banks being advertised as being able to charge several batteries simultaneously (my understanding) which made me think that the battery can be charged independently of the phone.  At a pinch invest in one or more separate batteries and just swap them over when required. Otherwise I have missed the point about what power banks are all about.

Browntoa

Power banks have a usb port for charging leads with standard usb connector at on end.

It wouldn't, for example, be able to charge old school Nokia phones

That cannot charge a standalone battery

Telegraph_Sam

This is just one of many examples that must illustrate the point you are making
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-500000mAh-4USB-Power-Bank-LED-Backup-Battery-Charger-ALL-Mobiles-Phones-UK/223743791437?var=522458600815
Question then: Does the means exist to charge a Doro 409 battery that "short circuits" the suspect jack input connection? Inside or outside of or independently of the phone itself?

stragglebod

You don't seem to be paying any attention to what people are telling you. All these devices do is make power available to a USB port which you then connect to your phone just as you would using the regular charging cable. You don't remove the battery from the phone to place it in the device, they have no way of interfacing with the battery other than through the phone's charging port.

Ones that allow you to charge multiple devices simply have more than one USB port. That ebay one you linked to is the same device regardless of whether you choose Doro or LG or anything else in the dropdown - that's only there for search optimisation. Also, cheap and nasty ebay chargers are known to burn peoples houses down from time to time.

If the charging port on your phone is broken, you need a new phone. But don't get conned into buying another Doro.

Telegraph_Sam

I was obviously under an illusion / delusion as far as what power banks do, and it is good to be put right before spending money on the wrong thing.  Tks.  You would think however that there would be a gizmo somewhere that does for a mobile's battery what ordinary battery chargers do for standard AA and AAA rechargeables?

flashg67

Telegraph_Sam said:

I was obviously under an illusion / delusion as far as what power banks do, and it is good to be put right before spending money on the wrong thing.  Tks.  You would think however that there would be a gizmo somewhere that does for a mobile's battery what ordinary battery chargers do for standard AA and AAA rechargeables?

I'd guess that unlike AA / AAA etc, there are many different combinations of phone battery with pin placement, size etc - would be virtually impossible to have a universal one. And as so may phone batters aren't removable nowadays, probably not much call for them. 

Telegraph_Sam

I think it's all a matter of terminology.  I've now found that there is a category of gizmos so called "Universal External ... Battery Chargers" that do seem designed to do this job, but as you say it seems to be a matter of exploring with the various vendors if universal means universal .. Samsung looks like more universal than Doro.

stragglebod

Just googled that. Stay well away. Buy a new phone.

Have a look at the Nokia 105 or 106. There are YouTube reviews if you need to see how big the buttons are. If they aren't big enough for you the Artfone C1+ is supposed to be really good for elderly users with things like an emergency button, physical lock, torch and of course big buttons, but I've no experience of using it myself.

Telegraph_Sam

At the risk of complicating matters I do in fact have a new Doro, but there are complications with retaining the same number and swapping non-identical SIM cards and things... a different topic.  Belt & braces it would suit me very nicely to be able to keep the original Doro going, and the costs of some of the "Universal External ..s." are not extortionate if it was possible to vet the device in advance. Which is what I am trying to do. [PS I have for years found the clamshell Doro vastly more practical for making and receiving basic phone calls compared with a Samsung smart phone that I have that really isn't that smart other than in name.]