plugverdict

Will your plug work abroad?

Everything in your bag, answered at once: what needs a plug adapter, what needs a voltage converter, and what to leave at home.

Four rules that cover almost everything

  1. If the label says 100–240 V, you need a plug adapter and nothing else. That covers phone and laptop chargers, cameras, power banks and e-readers — most of what is in the bag. The supply voltage anywhere in the world falls inside that range, and the power supply regulates the rest. Where to find that line →
  2. Anything that heats is built for one voltage, and the wrong one destroys it. A heating element is a fixed resistance, so power goes as the square of the voltage: a 120 V hair dryer on a 230 V supply tries to draw about 5,500 W. The reverse direction is harmless but useless — it runs at roughly a quarter power. The arithmetic →
  3. A converter is two different products, and the light one won't do it. A transformer handles anything and weighs several kilograms. A travel converter chops the waveform, suits resistive loads only, and is usually rated for minutes rather than continuous use. Neither belongs on a laptop, which never needed one. Which is which →
  4. A plug can fit perfectly and still drop the earth. A two-pin Europlug slides into an earthed German socket and connects nothing to earth. There is no resistance and no warning, and it matters on anything with metal you can touch — kettles, irons, steamers, desktop machines. What that protects against →

Frequency — 50 Hz against 60 Hz — barely matters. It affects mains-driven clocks and some motors, which run fast or slow rather than failing. Nothing with a modern power supply notices.

What this checks

You pack a bag, not one item, so we answer for everything at once.

Three questions per device rather than one. Whether the voltage will destroy it or merely starve it, which are different answers that most guides collapse into the same one. Whether the plug goes in. And whether the earth survives, which almost nobody publishes: a Type C plug slides into a Type F socket perfectly and carries no earth at all.

Every country is labelled with where its data came from. Where it says two general references agree, that is exactly what it means, and not that anyone rang the national electricity authority.