S Korea & China Mandate Common Chargers, Data Cables

mrbill writes "Seems that South Korea and China have mandated Common Cell Phone chargers and data cables. No proprietary chargers and data cables any more. Must use USB for charging etc. "

Comments

Or do the dual thing...

[__aaclcg7560]

My Dad got a new cell phone made by the same company that makes my cell phone that comes with a dual power interface. At home, he uses the pin connector to charge. At my place, he can use the flat connector that I use to charge my cell phone.

now let's get them in cars!

[jspectre]

now this is very nice news. would be even better if car companies put usb plugs right in a car. maybe one for data to play mp3's thru your radio, and a few just to charge various devices. who uses a cigarette lighter socket for cigarettes any more??? do we really need that huge socket plus a usb adapter?

Summary is wrong

[Tim C]

The summary says that phones "must use USB for charging". The fine article, however, says that "handsets sold there should be able to charge via USB".

There is a lot of difference between those two statements; the former makes absolutely no sense, as not every mobile phone user has a computer (or one with a USB port). The latter is a wonderful idea that frankly should be implemented as soon as humanly possible.

Not only positive

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia gets the credit for using the same connector for all it's phones.

I got bitten by exactly that. I had a Nokia phone that ran out of power, but the charger was at home. So I borrowed a Nokia charger from someone else. I looked for a voltage rating on the phone, but couldn't find any, so in the end thought "ok, both phone and charger is Nokia, and the plugs fit, so let's give it a try".

Took half a year before the battery could hold power for more than a day. Charging a 15 volt Nokia phone (when I got home, I checked the voltage of my own charger) with a 3 volt Nokia charger is very bad for the battery.

Of course, the other way around might be even worse.

Re:amperage

[spikestabber]

A lot of motherboards power the USB through the +5VSB rail thus are unable to provide a lot of USB power over 500mA. Motherboards that come with 10 USB ports or more are powered by the main 5V rail, its rather trivial to find out you can get at least 2000mA out of one of them.

Re:Mandate

[trewornan]

Slashdot is not a typical cross section of the general public - most people are unlikely to buy a data cable or flasher for their mobile phone.

Re:Motorola is already doing it

[Count_Froggy]

Two caveats: You cannot charge a RAZR from a USB port on a laptop without buying Motorola's 'Mobile tools'. The port on my ACER laptop will not supply power without an active driver in WinXP - and Motorola doesn't include drivers with the phone (or allow them to be downloaded later). Another reason to not buy another Motorola product. Crippled USB port. Would you buy a usb-equipped music player if you had to pay extra to get the usb port to work???