Apologies if there is already a thread covering this subject, I had a quick look and couldn't spot it.

I'm off out soon to buy a Kindle, but am reluctant to spend the £16.99 for the official power charger kit, after my mum told me my uncle picked her up a charger in Asda for £5.

I think it's disgusting that you can't use it straight from the box without buying extra accessories

Does anyone know of the best one to get or even what I'm looking for? I shoudl have looked last time I was in the supermarket and seen what they had on offer, but I forgot.

All help appreciated

You don't need the official charger. Any micro USB charger will do. You may even have one already from a mobile phone or digital camera. If not you can get them for £2-3 on Ebay.

lovely thank you very much

You can charge the kindle from your pc. Just plug in the supplied USB cable to your pc and kindle and leave it to charge while you use the pc.

Or buy the Kindle Keyboard (the model with 3G) as that comes with a charger.

As poster #2 said though you can use a universal charger if you like - I keep one in my bag for my phone but also use it to charge my Kindle if needed. Likewise you can use the official Kindle charger to give other items a boost as long as the plug fits.

My wife simply plugs her Kindle into the charger plug that came with her iPhone. You get a lead with the Kindle I believe. It works a treat.

A couple of weeks ago either Lidl or Aldi (I can't remember which) were selling usb chargers for about £5, as one of their specials. They were a 3 pig plug (for a normal UK socket) with a standard usb socket as an output. There were no cables, just the adaptor plug. They might still have them as branches around here tend to keep their specials in for a few weeks.

As someone says, PC recharge works, but it's pretty slow.

The keyboard version doesn't necessarily have 3G - mine is wireless only. It came with a charger - I wasn't aware some models didn't. A bit daft since it's essential.

Annoying but not too essential as all new phones (except the Iphone) now come with them - it's supposed to be the new standard charger and in a few years time even new phones won't come with them (to save waste).

Hmm. Makes a lot of sense, I suppose.

The new cheaper one comes without a charger, it comes with a lead though and you can simply charge from your PC USB port.

My daughter bought a cheap charger for her Kindle she had at Christmas, £1.68 off Amazon apparently?.

But it's not 'essential'.

You can also get an adaptor to plug the supplied USB cable into the mains. Look for "USB UK Plug adaptor" on Amazon or Ebay. Two quid max.

I seem to remember a warning from a couple of years ago about cheap USB / mains adaptors ... they weren't converting AC to DC, so they were charging with AC.

So are the adaptors which come with mobile phones all outputting the same voltage? I have a charger for my LG phone, but I can't find any information on the output. Similarly, I can't find the input voltage the Kindle expects.

I just plug my Kindle in either the USB port on a computer or laptop or plug the lead into one of several generic USB chargers we have dotted around the house. One of the chargers is also used for my Galaxy S2...no problems.

All devices with USB connector must handle 5V from computer USB ports when plugged in and that's what USB chargers deliver. They may differ in how high current they can deliver. I think ipads have higher requirements for current than is USB standard and they won't charge from a standard USB port and need a special charger, but other devices should be fine with any USB charger. Personally I would not trust the cheapest of the cheapest USB charger with my often very expensive devices. I use one that came with my mobile phone.

Thanks for all the help I hadn't realised that it came with the lead connecting to the pc, so I need not have worried abot the charger. I left before I saw all those replies so I picked up a cheap charger at the same time, which will come in handy for other things no doubt.

I only charged the kindle for about an hour on my pc then spent 5 blissful hours reading the new Matthew Reilly book on it. Was quite pleased that for so little charging time it lasted so long.

Love my kindle now, can't believe I waited so long to get one

My Kindle came with a charger.

The only "Kindle Keyboard" you can buy now from Amazon has 3G. Before the "new" model came out the Kindle had a keyboard and was either 3G & wifi or wifi only.

They last a while - Mines been charged once since xmas (although has spent a few hours connected to the PC).