Retractable Hotsysnc & Charging USB Data Cable + USB Car Charger + USB Home Travel Charger for Apple Iphone 3G 2nd Generation Smartphone

I bought this because my Dock Connector-USB cable that came with my iPhone 3G was fraying. the cable that comes with this package is great, but not with the supplied wall charger. I used my original wall charger with the new usb cable, because the wall charger that is in this package didn't actually charge my iPhone 3G, it just gave me the charging battery icon, it never actually filled up though. I haven't tested the car charger yet, sorry!

From what I've experienced, the other reviewers are correct: this product is either not designed to charge an iPhone 3G from a wall outlet, or else has such quality control problems that only a minority of wall units sold (judging from the reviews) actually work. The presentation on my iPhone is that the status icon on the top of the iPhone switches to the charging icon, and the full screen image with the green battery bar graph appears. But the unit doesn't really charge. And when you try to "slide to unlock" when connected to the wall charger, the arrow button never slides, and you cannot get to the Home screen (or the Enter Passcode screen if you have a passcode).

There are several online reports to the effect that several generic third-party iPod/iPhone chargers no longer work with the iPhone 3G. That seems to be true here, despite the claims to 3G-compatibilty.

The USB cable should work fine, though you can purchase it very cheaply by itself. I've not tried the car charger, and honestly wasn't in a big hurry to do so since I've traditionally had bad experiences with such devices (although I must admit that today's rechargeable batteries are much more resilient than the NiCads and lead acid gel contraptions that us greybeards started out with in the 1980s).

So your experience may be better, and it's not a major purchase, but since it's claimed that this is iPhone 3G compatible, I'm giving it one star and suggesting you look elsewhere.

As a person that has the tendency to lose things when travelling - I find this combination of car charger/wall charger/USB sync charger very very useful. It definitely can be reliably used as a backup ( I keep one in my travel bag and use the original in my home office). For the price, it can't be beat.

This was well worth the risk. The chargers do look a bit cheap, but hey, for this price you can't expect a lifetime warranty with gold-plated connectors. The cable looks sturdy enough and unlike the default 3G sync cable this one locks into place and you need to press the button on the plug to release and disconnect it from the iPhone.

When I first connected my iPhone 3G to this charger and cable, it displayed the icon like it was already charged, although the battery was half full. However, then I tried connecting this cable to Apple's original charger and it worked. After that I tried connecting Apple's cable to this charger and that worked too. After that I reconnected the cables to their original chargers and weeks later everything is still working fine.

Although the AC power supply is rated at 1 A, I don't think it has that value because it seems to take more time to charge my iPhone than with Apple's original 1 A charger.

Both chargers have the USB outlet and the same cable has to be used with either one of them, or you can use the original Apple cable as well. It would have been nice to have two identical cables so I could keep one in the car. The car charger works just fine, with the red LED being quite bright.

Bottomline: It works and it's very affordable. Go for it, unless you don't like saving a greater portion of the price of Apple's accessories and feeling cheap.

SHIPPER: Very fast shipping; I'm happy
PRODUCT: The wall charger is larger than the factory one and has a power-on LED. Nice to see if there is any "connection issue"...which there has not been.

The retractable cable is great for traveling; just enough length for mobile use. IT DOES SYNC.

The car charger charges.

CONCLUSION: I'm happy, IPhone 3g is happy, so.....?