I thought my charger was fine until this simple test proved otherwise

Like you, I have “The Drawer.” In case you don’t know what I mean, I’m talking about that tangled graveyard of charging bricks and fraying USB cables collected over a decade of smartphone ownership. I should have realized sooner to stop using a junk drawer, but old habits die hard. When my phone’s battery starts to dip into the red zone, I usually just grab the first cable I see, plug it in, and hope for the best.