Playbook charger / BB charger ARE interchangeable

I've seen a couple of people ask this, so thought I would give an explanation.

A regular BB charger puts out 700 mAh of current, which is the correct current to charge a BB battery.

The PB charger puts out 1800 mAh of current, and I was worried it might fry the battery / phone... even if it didn't fry the phone, that extra current (over 2.5 times more) would cause the battery to heat up MUCH more than the regular charger, and shorten the battery life considerably.

The good news is... it appears the BB OS regulates the power automatically. I can see while using the PB charger, it's using roughly the same charge current (within 10%) of the regular charger.

So, in summary:

You can use either the PB charger or regular BB charger to charge your Berry. One will not work better / faster, it should be about the same.

If you choose to use a regular BB charger on the PB, it will probably work, but will probably also take a long time. If it takes 2 hours with the PB charger, I'm guess 5+ hours with a regular BB charger.

If you're travelling, and just want to take 1 charger, the PB charger is a safe bet.

Hope this helps!

I was curious about this, I will probably get the rapid charger for travel anyways, but good to know that the multiple BB chargers I have laying around will still work!

That will make life easier, only having to tote one charger if one is in a hurry. I was using a new 1A block charger the other day, and my Style handled it just fine. Good to know charging from PlayBook charger works, as well, for the BlackBerry handheld.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

i got an email congratulating me on my purchase and in the email, it had mentioned that i could charge my phone with the pb charger... much faster too...

I was just about to ask this question as I knew, from mistake, that it's almost impossible to charge the PB from the BB charger! LOL This means I only have to haul one charger to the cottage this summer. Thanks for the info, Alex!

Oh, I stopped using the standard wall plug/USB cable to charge my 9810 a while back. The PB wall charger does the job so much faster.

Compatibility list according to RIM:
BlackBerry� PlayBook™ tablet
BlackBerry� Bold™ 9930/9900
BlackBerry� Torch™ 9860/9850
BlackBerry� Torch™ 9810
BlackBerry� Torch™ 9800
BlackBerry� Bold™ 9780
BlackBerry� Bold™ 9700
BlackBerry� Bold™ 9650
BlackBerry� Curve™ 9380
BlackBerry� Curve™ 9370/9360/9350
BlackBerry� Curve™ 3G 9300
BlackBerry� Curve™ 8900
BlackBerry� Curve™ 8500 series
BlackBerry� Tour™ 9630
BlackBerry� Style™ 9670
BlackBerry� Storm2™ 9550
BlackBerry� Storm™ 9530
BlackBerry� Pearl™ 3G 9100 series
BlackBerry� Pearl™ Flip 8200 series

Love the ability of the PB charger to sync both my 9800 and my PB to the grid.

Generally the rapid charger (magnetic contacts) is all the PlayBook sees while the PB charger stays connected to my phone dock as my regular phone charger.

I skimmed but the pb's standard wall charger is actually sold by rim as a rapid charger for their micro-usb port phones.

I love the rapid charger for my PB, but never considered the use of the standard USB packed in with the PlayBook when I bought it.

Interesting find.

nice to know ! :D

That's kinda cool... After almost exactly 1 year, this thread comes back from the dead! :D

You Can't your bb charger on pb.but you Can use pb charger on ur bb

I always travel with just the PB usb charger for my phone and PB. My BB charger won't charge my PB unless it's off. When in standby the plug shows on the icon and there isn't enough current to charge. And the other poster is right, the OEM rapid charger for the BB phone is the OEM standard charger for the PB. The PB charger charges my phone in roughly half the time the standard BB charger does, hence the moniker rapid charger ;)

The comment "you can use PB charger on BB but not the other way around" makes sense. Just felt that I could add to this discussion.

The PB charger's output is 5V and 1.8A i.e. 1800 mA
The Z10 charger's output is 5V and 0.85A i.e. 850 mA

The AH rating is the total capacity of the battery/charger (source) but the most crucial is the voltage. The total power delivered by the source is VxA. The following analogy has helped me in the past:
Amperage is the equivalent of the amount of water in the water tank
Voltage is the equivalent of the pressure with which the water could be delivered

The Amp rating of a power source denotes the maximum current that one could draw. If the load consumes anywhere from 0 to 1.8A, the load-source marriage will be fine. This is the reason why PB can't be charged using Z10's charger; it may charge but it will take long. But, the reverse will be fine since the load will only take as much current as it needs which in the case of Z10 is <= 0.85A.

Didn't mean for this to be a sermon but I hope that it helps. Any corrections or clarifications are welcome.

The PB Wi-Fi battery is rated at 19.95 volts and 5.4 amp-hours. The nominal battery voltage is taken as 3.7 volts although the actual voltage decreases from about 4.2 volts at 100% charge to about 3.5 volts at shutoff close to 0% charge. The voltage measured at the battery terminals is slightly less than actual voltage if the battery is discharging and slightly more if the battery is charging. The battery voltage will also change slightly for a brief period of time after being shutdown as equilibrium is reestablished. The battery system on the Playbook has control circuits and software to prevent overcharging and to shut down if battery charge falls too low and probably also if temperature gets too high. Blackberry Knowledge Base article KB27705 has information on charging. One statement suggests that the software may limit charging from USB ports to 0.4 amperes. This overridden if the PB recognizes the charger device as having higher capacity. The BB charger uses a charging cable which has the data wires connected to each other (shorted) not a standard USB cable.

Above info may be overload for some but a couple of simple observations can be taken from it.
(1) At 6 hours cycle life the PB would require a little more than. 0.9 ampere. Thus a charger with less input cannot keep up with power use in normal operation.
(2) It is necessary for the PB to recognize the charging source ( charger) for it to charge and depending on this recognition may limit the current allowed.
(3) When charging from low rate sources reduce the PB power use by putting it in airplane mode and standby.
(4) Batteries will have individual variation and after use battery capacity decreases, hopefully slowly, so numbers given above should be taken with a small grain of salt as applied to your system.