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Comment by Peaker | Hacker News Reader

Micro-USB has been terrible, reliability wise. The ports survive pretty well, but cables wear out at an unacceptable pace.

I buy stocks upon stocks of micro USB cables, and I've switched to wireless charging, because I simply keep running out of them.

It's not simply me being reckless, my wife's cables wear out, as do my brother's and various friends.

Also, none of us had any of these issues back with mini-USB (though admittedly we used those cables much less than we use micro today).

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I agree. Micro USB was not an improvement over Mini USB. I've never had a Mini USB cable go bad, but easily a third or more of Micro USB cables I've owned are faulty, with barely any stress. Also, Mini USB cables were a huge improvement over standard USB, because I could orient them by feel alone. I've lost that ability with Micro USB, where it often takes three tries to plug it in.

That's all intentional. Mini USB cables were stronger than Mini USB ports. Its generally better to make the weaker side of a connector the cheap easy-to-replace cable.

I've had a bit of luck with Amazon Basics branded cables recently. They've got quite a chunky connector/cable that's lasted a lot longer than my default phone cables have.

If stress is placed on the connector something will break eventually. From Wikipedia; [it is] designed to reduce the mechanical wear on the device; instead the easier-to-replace cable is designed to bear the mechanical wear of connection and disconnection. Compare that to 3.5mm audio sockets where the device has to be fixed instead of the cheaper headphones.

Interesting. I've owned devices that are exclusively micro-usb for years now, and I don't think I've ever had a cable wear out on me. However, that may be because I lose them to quickly for them to wear out.

When you say the cable wears out, do you mean the plastic-encased wire wears out, the male connector wears out, or the point where the male connector is joined to the wire wears out?

The male connector wears out, I think. But maybe it's the wire side of the male connector, I've never thoroughly tested, just played with the angles till it charged.

Does the connector have much effect on the construction of the cable itself? Perhaps Micro-USB cables are more likely to have a thinner cable due to the smaller connector.

What I have experienced are the connectors on the cable either breaking or ripping off of the cable. This has happened twice with a device I use regularly, with no damage whatsoever to the port.

The cables die because of the connector. You can toy with the connector and it does work in some angles after it breaks, most of the time.

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