While the discussion for the inclusion or exclusion of chargers with new phones has convincing arguments on either side of the discussion you pitch your tent in, a single phone model being shipped with a charger in a different part of the world and without it in other regions is certainly a first in these modern times.
That is what has happened with the newly released Galaxy A53 5G, which is part of the Galaxy A series refresh.
From the official documents sheet, the Galaxy A53 5G is supposed to ship with, the phone itself, a USB-C to USB-C cable, the manual, and the SIM ejection tool. However, the Brazilian version of the device also gets shipped with a 15W charger.
Now, 15W charging is not impressive in 2022 by any means, and the Galaxy A53 5G itself has support for 25W fast charging, but a free charger is a free charger, and they are becoming increasingly rare, especially in the midrange and high-end category for smartphones.
This information came to light on the international scene, when Americanas, one of the authorized Samsung dealers in Brazil, confirmed that they will be shipping the device in the country with the 15W charging brick.
A Samsung official also confirmed the same on the device’s FAQ page, making it clear it is not an incentive being carried by the Americanas dealer to incentivize Brazilians into buying the A53 5G from their stores instead of other Brazilian stores that might not include the charging brick.
A Brazilian YouTuber has an unboxing video of the Galaxy A53 5G, which you can watch here. Making a comparison to the official unboxing video from Samsung here, it is clear that the box the Brazilian YouTuber has is noticeably bigger to house the charging brick as well the phone.
It is not clear whether Brazil is the only country getting the A53 5G shipped with a charging brick, but it seems to be, as there are no other reports circulating from other countries. But why only in Brazil, you might ask?
The most logical explanation for this has to be that Samsung included the charger in order to comply with the country’s laws regarding the sale of new smartphones without the means to charge them.
The company might have done the maths and decided it is better to shoulder the burden of including slow cheap 15W chargers that they might already have lying around instead of getting on the wrong side of the law by shipping the A53 5G without the charging brick as the company is doing in other parts of the world where there are no such restrictions.
To give credit to this, the Brazilian consumer watchdog fined Apple 2 million dollars for failing to include a charger for the iPhone 12 Series in the country. Apple dropped the charger citing environmental gain, but the watchdog said the company failed to demonstrate this as well as quoting other infringements in their terms that Apple was in infringement of, including misleading advertising.
