Sony takes a page out of Apple's playbook for A6700, ditching charging hardware and leaving users with no default way to charge the device

While the Sony A6700 was generally well-received, despite being a rather subdued upgrade to Sony's compact APS-C mirrorless camera lineup, new reports of Sony's exclusion of any charging hardware might stir up some controversy around the camera (via Sony Alpha Rumors). While more recent cameras have been shipped without chargers, it's uncommon for a camera company to go so far as to omit even the USB Type-C cable from the box.

It's not particularly surprising to see Sony pull both the charger and USB Type-C cable from its A6700 camera box, given that its most recent flagship Xperia 1 V smartphone also shipped with basically just the phone in the box.

Fortunately, the Sony A6700 supports USB Type-C power delivery, although Sony doesn't specify exactly how much power it is capable of sucking down. It is surprising, though, that Sony wouldn't get out in front of the news by announcing that the A6700 would not come with any charging hardware.

Over the last three years, the smartphone industry has adopted the trend of excluding chargers, and cables, in some cases, from their product packaging. This move has been met with more than a little backlash, but manufacturers are justifying the move by citing reduced packaging and plastic consumption due to environmental concerns. 

When it comes to smartphones, the motivation kind of makes sense, since most of us have already have a USB Type-C charger for a previous phone when we upgrade. Some of the more astute observations about the lack of chargers in many modern devices is that it may end up resulting in an increase in pollution because of consumers buying separate chargers when they upgrade.

On the other hand, many photographers are likely to buy an extra battery and charger anyway — especially true for travel and professional photographers who don't necessarily know if they'll be able to top up at their shooting location.

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