I wonder if anyone else has this problem? I seem to buy 4 chargers a year. Two people I know have two different theories- the first that it's how you handle the top/head of the charger. The second says its to do with time when your charger is in the wall when it's not charging anything. (The second theory was from an engineer) I'm guessing there are two solutions, 1) a longer wire, meaning you have to twist it less. Or 2) a docking station instead.
When we talk about chargers, we should be talking about the wires and their flaws or about the charger itself? I have a real problem with my business Surface charger. The original Microsoft chargers are a disaster where the Surface-connector cable meets the charger. They always fail there, getting cut due to torsion. My theory is that the protector set there is too hard/stiff and the cable too soft, which forces it to cut there. This also happens in the lightning cables of the iPhones, but the solution in these ones is to put the cable away by making circles with it (instead of putting it as an "8", I hope you understand me because I don't find another way to express it...). The charger itself seems to be fine for me, the problem is the cable. I've just bought an HP 2 in 1 and to my happyness, the connection of the cable with the charger is not as stiff as in the Microsoft chargers, so it should last longer. It looks as the old one I had in my Toshiba Portege R100, which lasted me the whole computer life (7-8 years). I don't expect modern chargers to last that, but it's unacceptable that you need to buy new chargers of expensive products as Apple's or Microsoft's devices every few months.
? I've not had one single Apple charger for iPhone or iPad fail on me in all my years on iOS (since 2008 or earlier?). That's if it is failure you're talking about. Losing them or misplacing them however is another story. If you're buying cheap eBay ones then yeh I've had an issue or two with those.
There's braided cables on Amazon. I don't like how Apple's cables are and I've nearly considered buying. I've had to replace my iPod cable twice mainly because it was plugged in almost all the time. Never had to replace my iPad cable. I did have an incident with a cat that was in my room and was messing with my cable. It left a small bite mark and no damage was made. I've kept my cables hidden away since that happened a few years ago.
I put those little springs that are used inside of pens on each end of the cables to stop them from bending too far as this is where the wearing problem usually first occurs. I'm careful to not puncture the cable when putting them on but I'm sure there are other types of springs (plastic) to use to avoid that but I've not had a problem and my cables have lasted for years.
For me, the actual AC adapter plug-In that goes into the wall is no problem at all. In fact I'm still using the one that came with my original iPad 2, that I bought in 2011, and it's flawless. Last June I FINALLY upgraded to an iPad Pro 12.9, and haven't even unwrapped the charger that came with it. Now the actual Lighting cable that the USB end goes into the charger, and the other in the iPad is another story. They usually last about 3 months or so, before they stop working completely. Really the cable made for the iPad 2 was the same way. So, I just buy the cables in bulk on Amazon, usually a couple of packs that have 3 or 4 cables in them. And then when I get down to the last one, I order again, so I make sure I ALWAYS have spares, in case of emergencies. Really I've found that no matter how good of 'quality' you get, they still won't last more than a few months.
