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Comment by peeters | Hacker News Reader

I've already decided I'm buying this phone, but I have to ask:

Why should I care about wireless charging? I can't see this feature enriching my life in the slightest. Ok, it looks cool sitting there. But docks look cool too. Is it more convenient? I would argue no (saves maybe two seconds of effort per charge). Is it more portable? Definitely not.

Is this only hyped up because of the "coolness" factor?

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I have HP Touchpad tablet with Touchstone wireless dock - and I can't stress how awesome it is to be able to just put it down on a stand near my bed and not have to look for one of the two USB cables (because tablet requires more power than my phone, I need to pick the right one), just plop it down and it charges.

And same thing in the morning - I don't have to carefully pick it up, trying not to yank cord from charger, disconnect charging cable - just grab it, and go to bathroom.

And when I'm out of home, I can charge it with regular microUSB plug, but believe me, I curse it every single time.

I think the manufacturers are trying to make restaurants, public transport and maybe even office furniture companies to add those charging surfaces everywhere. That way your phone would pick up some power here and there.

I wonder how much that would increase lost phones on public transport ;-)

I have a Samsung Galaxy 1 at the moment and after 2 and 1/2 years of poking usb thingy into the receiving port it came undone. Not completely, but it takes a fair amount of jiggling and negotiations to get the juice flowing.

Wireless charging makes a lot of sense, I am going to buy one as soon as it becomes available

My micro-usb cables are dying at about 1 per month.

Getting high-quality cables around here is pretty difficult.

I'd really love to toss away the cables (maybe keep 1 emergency one in my portable bag).

I recently discovered you can buy those cables for a buck each in dollar stores.

I like the concept, but I often use my phone while charging (in bed or at work). In these instances I'd want a cable.

Here's a quick example. last night I docked my galaxy nexus poorly not pressing it down into the dock all the way. Over night it ran out of power and shut down leaving me with no morning alarm. My nexus one had this issue too especially after the charging pins wore down a bit.

Theoretically wireless charging could've saved me some trouble. Not a huge feature perhaps but nice.

You don't realize how nice it is to save those 5 seconds, plus the mental effort of grabing the cable, finding the port, and plugging it in the right orientation until you get wireless charging.

yea seriously. cables are death.

I didn't even realize it had this.

For me, I'd love to be able to snap my phone in to a mount/charger in my car. My original Motorola Droid became useless to me when the micro USB connection started falling out unless I physically held it in place. Otherwise I'd still be using it.

It's the difference between using a wifi weight scale and using a normal weight scale and recording the value in an app. That removal of friction will make you weigh yourself more.

Wireless charging 5-30 second operation into a 2 second operation

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