I bought a Playbook in October, and one of my first actions was to try to understand why a perfectly good 2 Amp 5v charger would not charge the Playbook. I soon discovered the same sneaky set up that is described in the above email, namely that the two data lines of the USB plug are shorted together. To prove my theory I used a pair of sockets purchased from Maplin with the two data pins shorted.... Bingo! The battery icon showed its lighting strike, and the Playbook charged. Remove said short and the same charger will not even trickle charge! I then tried it with a lower rating charger aprox. 1 Amp, and the the other battery Icon showed, indicating partial charging. I really cannot understand why BB have been so mean minded to prevent non OEM chargers from working. They are not alone, Samsung Tab (P1000) has an even more sneaky trap. There the two data pins are connected to the power pins via a potential divider resistor chain, to present 1V on Data- and 4V on Data+. Again why bother when all they are achieving is customer agro!
On a secondary issue, I do despair how so much nonsense can be aired on forums. People saying that it is dangerous to use a 5V 2 Amp charger when the original is only 700mA rating. No one seems to bother about correcting such untruths. Yes if there is a fault on the device, you now have 10Watts to burn it out rather than 3.5Watts, but that would be the case using a faulty Playbook, expecting a 2 Amp supply.
I should also caution against anyone modifying a power supply or lead, unless they are sure and competent about what they are doing.
