The USB charging port on my Samsung Galaxy J3 has died (as in the metal connectors have separated from the connector and smooshed against the back wall.) I would rather avoid the expense of replacing it or having it repaired and it has a removable battery. (This exact model.) I want to buy an external battery charger (and possibly a second battery for swapping out) but I’m not sure about what to buy. The top items googled up with “Samsung Galaxy J3 battery charger” appear to be kinds of universal chargers. Would one of those work for me? Any experience with this kind of thing?
Additional model number on the other side of the battery is eb-bg530cbu.
I’m sure a universal charger would work. A few years ago I was in the same situation with my Galaxy SIII. I went in to the last Radio Shack on earth and they charged mine with their in house universal charger while I shopped. It worked but was a bit finicky because you have to line up the connections manually. I ended up buying a model specific charger because they had one hanging there. 3 years later, battery and charger are still going strong. I use that old phone exclusively for Clash of Clans. Lol.
One thing though, at first I did go get the port fixed and it didn’t cost much but it only lasted about 6 months. Depending on just how long you intend to keep the phone you might rethink that option because, unlike the external charger workaround, you regain your data port too.
I decided to give this one a try at $4.99 with free shipping. I was kind of concerned about the whole “exploding lithium battery” thing, but since I’m hearing no tales of harrowing near-death experiences I’m assuming it is a legitimate product category.
(This phone is used for ebooks and manga and video read off a MicroSD card, not as an actual phone, so I wasn’t wanting to put even tens of dollars into repair costs–and this would have been a difficult repair–the replacement part costs literally $1.00 on-line but has to be soldered, not a simple ribbon cable.)