Phone Chargers To Be Standardized In 2011 | Hacker News Reader

Phone Chargers To Be Standardized In 2011

hothardware.com

19 pointskingsidharth10 comments

I'm glad they're standardizing, but MicroUSB is a terrible connection, mechanically. It's what my HTC Incredible uses, and I have to fiddle around with it for a few seconds every time I plug my phone in.

I wish they would've hired IDEO or someone to actually design this before they settled on a standard. Something you could plug in with one hand, in pitch black, while drunk.

... Not that I've ever tried to do that.

Their example phone (the HTC Evo) has the worst port arrangement of any phone I've owned. Not only is the microUSB hard to figure out which way is up, the micro-HDMI port has a nearly identical shape as the microUSB, only upside down. I wouldn't be surprised if I some how damaged the micro-HDMI port in the first few weeks of owning the phone from trying to get the microUSB to fit into the micro-HDMI port.

I've actually found the microUSB port to work pretty well in terms of charging reliability (better than the miniUSB on my old blackberry at the very least), but it certainly doesn't help that the side the USB logo is on seems to vary from cable to cable.

With MicroUSB, the parts that wear out are in the cable rather than in the port. So you probably just need a new cable.

With MiniUSB, it was the other way around... which meant throwing away the whole device when one spring in a tiny USB port wore out.

I just hope they standardize on port orientation. I have an iDapt i4 charging station, and my EVO goes on backwards, but my blackberry and mp3 player are fine. Clearly a standard is needed here.

I haven't had this problem and I've owned Blackberry's since they were blue.

Charged thousands of times - MicroUSB is an easy connection.

That being said, I really like the magnetization of the macbook power connector and would happily trade microUSB for something with a magnet rather than a push.

At first, I was surprised to see Apple in that list since they tend to do things their way. But it's true that they've used the iPod connector for ages and that it's been very nice to be able to use any iPod cables laying around to charge pretty much anything they've built since.

As Erik pointed out, it'd be nice to see something super easy to plug. I've never had much problems with the iPod connector, maybe due to the build quality. But USB (of all sizes, but regular USB in particular) has often times been a problem. It needs to either accept to be plugged upside-down or to be very simple to identify which side is up. USB is super frustrating on the latter.

They're most likely doing it so they can make an even smaller iPod Nano.

No, they're doing it because otherwise they can't sell iPhone 5 in EU

I would be very surprised if Apple ships the next iPhone with a Micro USB port in Europe. They will probably just throw in a dock connector to Micro USB cable.

Until the next phone maker decides that selling a different type of charger or cable is going to add a few dollars to their P&L.

Not if they want to sell that phone in the EU...

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