Here’s how to charge your Amazon Kindle with a phone charger:
If you can find a phone charger with a micro USB connection, simply plug it into the Kindle and the wall.
If your phone uses a different connector, you can use an adapter or a micro USB cable.
Either will allow the Kindle to plug into the wall charger for your phone, and it will work.
So if you want to learn all about charging your Kindle with a cell phone charger and other options, then this article is for you.
Let’s get started!
What Kind of Chargers Do Kindles Use?
By and large, Kindles use micro USB connectors to attach to their chargers.
Micro USB has been around for decades, and it’s very common for a lot of handheld devices.
Micro USB has one of the smallest connector form sizes, and because of this, it’s designed to handle less electricity than newer formats, like USB-C.
Since a Kindle isn’t super power-hungry, this is fine. Amazon can stick with micro USB.
It’s cheaper, which lowers the total cost of selling Kindles, and it’s a universal charger that is easy to find and work with.
So, the charger for your Kindle likely has micro USB on one end of the cable and regular USB on the other end.
The regular USB slot connects to a wall charger (or other chargers), and that’s how everything connects.
How Do You Use Different Chargers For Your Kindle? (2 Things)
Clearly, you know how to plug a charger into a device.
Rather than explain the obvious, we can get into how this works.
When a device attaches to a charger, the device demands electricity from the charger. The charger then works to meet the demand placed on it.
Understanding this is important because it allows us to know that you can safely mix and match chargers as long as the sockets fit.
If you have a high-speed phone charger, it won’t cause damage to your Kindle.
As long as you can use the right connectors between the Kindle and the charger, everything will work just fine.
#1 Check the Connections
This is really the key to the whole operation.
You’re looking for something that can plug directly into your Kindle without any special adapters.
Since Kindles largely use micro USB connectors, that’s what you’re looking for with your cell phone.
Now, the newest smartphones mostly use USB-C and Lightning (Apple’s proprietary connection) for charging.
Neither of these will work on your Kindle (although newer Kindles might adopt USB-C in the future).
So, to use such chargers, you would need an adapter.
That said, a lot of older phones used micro USB to charge.
If you have any old cables stored away, there’s a good chance that you can find one that will work for the Kindle.
To do this, no tricks are necessary.
Just plug the cable that fits your Kindle into the reader. Plug the other end into a power source, and you’re good to go.
#2 Exploit USB Universality
If the connections on the phone cable don’t match your Kindle, you can still potentially make the phone charger work.
Most modern chargers are really just DC inverters with one or more USB slots.
Let’s clarify that terminology.
Your average phone charger plugs into a wall outlet.
The device that plugs into the outlet is called a DC inverter.
It changes the flow of electricity coming out of the wall so that it will work with your phone.
The inverter itself can usually be detached from the charging cable that attaches to your phone.
This is the key.
If you have a micro USB cable for your Kindle, the other end can plug into any charger.
In other words, your Kindle uses a cable that has micro USB on one side and regular USB on the other side.
That USB plug can go into a phone charger that has a USB slot, and it will work perfectly. The trick is finding the micro USB cable.
Are There Other Chargers That Might Work With a Kindle? (5 Alternatives)
Since finding the micro USB part of the cable is the hard part of this equation, we can think about a ton of different devices that might come with the cable you need.
#1 GPS
GPS devices are not nearly as common as they once were.
The fact that smartphones can handle navigation and GPS services makes the dedicated devices feel superfluous.
Despite that, GPS handhelds can actually outperform smartphones in a number of situations.
Namely, GPS devices don’t drain their own batteries rapidly when you are in a remote area far from a cell tower.
For pure navigation, there are reasons to stick with dedicated GPS devices.
Many of these devices use USB micro connectors to recharge.
If you have such a device, its cable will work perfectly with a standard Kindle.
#2 Digital Cameras
Like GPS handhelds, digital cameras are not as widespread as they used to be, and this is also because of smartphones.
Still, plenty of people do have digital cameras, especially because they offer features and capabilities for taking photos that you won’t find on a phone.
Modern cameras all use lithium-ion batteries.
That means they can be recharged, and because they only take pictures, the power demand for these phones is usually low.
Because of that, most digital cameras use micro USB to recharge instead of a higher-power, more expensive connection type.
If you have a digital camera, check the cord. It just might be a perfect fit for your Kindle.
#3 Computer Peripherals
Computer peripherals come in all shapes and sizes, and they can do a lot of different things.
You can have adapters that allow you to plug a gaming controller into a USB port.
You can find wireless keypads that give you more precise control over your use of the computer.
Touch tracks are great for really precise photo editing.
No matter what you need, there’s a peripheral that can help you do it.
Most computer peripherals are not terribly hungry, and they often connect to the computer with a micro USB to USB cable.
This is especially common for wireless peripherals. Anything that uses such a cable can power your Kindle.
#4 Universal Adapters
This might seem like a bit of a cop-out, but it’s worth mentioning.
Manufacturers produce all kinds of adapters so you can connect various devices to each other.
There are a few connection types that are extremely common among universal adapters. USB and micro USB are on that list.
If you have any adapters stored away somewhere, take a look.
They might allow you to use a different cable and attach it to your Kindle.
If you can get the right set of adapters, pretty much any charging cable will work just fine.
As mentioned above, the Kindle dictates how much power runs through the cable.
#5 Handheld Electronics
Ultimately, there are a lot of different electronic devices in the world, and there are just too many to list them all here.
Typically speaking, handheld electronics don’t need as much power to recharge, and that is why many of them still use micro USB.
A few handhelds to help you think of this include gaming devices and gaming controllers.
Smartwatches often have proprietary charging connectors, but some use micro USB.
Pagers, daily organizers, night vision goggles, walkie-talkies and countless other devices are worth considering.
Just check the connection. If it matches what you need to charge your Kindle, then you can swap cables without any concern.
