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Comment by AnotherGoodName | Hacker News Reader

This is somewhat related as it's the next step of the above.

The floating tongue of the USB connection is in the socket, not the on the cable. As in the most fragile part of the design is on the device side, not the cable side. This means that you can more easily break your $1000 device not the $2 cable. They repeated this mistake with USB-C as well.

It's not hard to make a port where the cable is the free floating tongue and the device is a more robust socket that wraps around that fragile piece. I know everyone's happy about the iPhone moving to USB-C but the tongue on the cable side that it had was much better. Anyone who's tripped on a cable and broken a USB socket can attest to this.

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That's incorrect. USB-C design maximizes the device longevity by removing springs from the device that typically get worn down quickly.

The cable is responsible for the grip. You do get a protruding tongue on the device side, but it's well protected.

I broke mine on a S21. It's also getting wobbly on 2 Essential Phones.

As OP said, now those 3 expensive devices are mostly broken or at risk instead of the cheap cable. It's bad design compared to the Lightning connector, and I don't like Apple...

Be that as it may, the Lightning port's communications are shit and inferior to those of the ancient 30-pin iPod port.

Lightning can't even deliver full HD video; the iPod port could. And what Lightning does deliver is compressed trash.

For the aggrieved downvoters: https://blog.panic.com/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surp...

It's not really "bad design", it's an intentional tradeoff.

Doing it the Lightning way makes it significantly more difficult to guarantee good signal integrity, especially once you get into USB 3 speeds and beyond. Not to mention exposing sensitive pins to all kinds of ESD shocks!

Most repair shops are able to solder a new connector in the motherboard. You could try it.

My OnePlus 5T have 4 years now and connector is still fine. I suspect user error

>Tt's bad design compared to the Lightning connector, and I don't like Apple...

Lightning connector is significantly worse.

It's not. Their cables are bad but the connector is very simple to use and if abuse it the cable breaks.

I haven't had any problems with dozens of devices over the years. What are you doing to your phone?

Getting unlucky? I'm probably a bit careless when plugging in but at least the Samsung failure is a disgrace.

A Samsung tablet is faring better, though.

Basically buy 2 Lenovo X due to the broken usb-c power slot. There is a backup one but for business notebook you fly with you you really do not want a broken notebook.

I was surprised this mistake was made with USB-C. Surely a committee voted on this and knew what they were doing? Isn't Lightning the opposite way around?

Idk, lightning has the opposite problem where the contacts are exposed and degrade very quickly on the cable and need to be replaced constantly. Great for apple. And lightning has the gripping pins on the phone which degrade rather quickly too over repeated use. No cable is perfect I fear

Fwiw as a known clutz i haven't yet broken a USB C socket, the worst i've done is gummed a socket up with pocket lint. The symmetry helps avoid as many issues.

I did break USB A sockets though. They could easily be jammed in backwards and with the offset from center tongue and the cable perfectly designed to wedge in the wrong way and snap the tongue i did it far too often.

Unless we go to something radically different then one side or the other is going to have the flimsy bits.

For my money, I’d take a flimsy cable over a flimsy device port. Replacing a cable is a two minute trip to Amazon. Replacing a device port is a pricey and annoying trip to a repair shop or an evening with my soldering iron cursing the universe.

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