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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.
"
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This should happen all over. I wonder how much electronic waste is from cables and wall warts?
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
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.
They GOT credit you mean. Utopia is is not more - they now use a thinner and completely incompatible plug in several of their phones. I decided - no more Nokia. This is the very reason I've bought Nokia for a long time.
But this is BAD NEWS because it's GOVERNMENT CONTROL which is EVIL because the FREE MARKET would produce the BEST RESULT for the CONSUMERS!
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?
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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.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
"However, always beware the law of unintended consequences. It seems likely to me that the costs for this will be passed on to us, one way or another."
I disagree. Costs will go WAY down. Instead of paying high prices for proprietary, hard-to-find cables, we'll be able to cruise into Wal-Martz and ask for a "cell phone cable." "That'll be five dollars, please."
"The mobile manufacturers aren't just going to redesign and retool for free."
One might think that they're already redesigning and retooling with *every* new phone, given that they all have different cables?
I am not left-handed, either!
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.
you're both right.a lbum18/P1000121.jpg
The spec calls for 500mA but most vendors connect the port to an *unfused* 5V line. This (IMHO) is a BadIdea (tm). sure you can draw 2A, you can try to draw 100A too but something's gonna give.
Case in point: http://xbx.networkboy.net/modules/gallery/albums/
It's a design flaw (in most cases) that you can draw that much current from a USB port.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
You are so wrong.
You do not need a laptop to 'USB-charge'
You can pick up a USB Mains Charger for as little as 5 USD.
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
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.
Well, I'm not wrong about the article summary being wrong, and I'm not wrong about not everyone having a computer with a USB port (and I never even mentioned laptops), so at best I'm wrong about the need for such a computer in order to charge via USB, which was implied. So, I'm 66% right; not entirely sure that constitutes being "so wrong".
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Yeah, except that they actually include an adapter in the frickin' box so that you can still use your old chargers with the new thinner socket.
Considering how large the old connector is, what else could they have done to decrease its footprint in newer, slimmer phones?
You pay through the nose for the non-standard charger when you have to replace it in a few years, generally between 30 and 50 dollars for a part with a materials cost of at most a dollar.
You pay for it in phones that get thrown out because the non-standard charger tax in a few years makes it more feasable to dump the phone than replace the hideously unstandard wall-wart. Hence, more landfill costs, more materials costs, and a depressed to non-existant secondary market.
You pay for it in electricity, in the trickle costs of the many, many different chargers plugged in but idle in any given household.
You pay for it in brainspace, trying to keep everything clear in your head. Those times you fail to take the proper charger with you on a trip and you have to buy another one when you get there.
And on the other end of the spectrum, all of this is because the hardware companies want to bury hidden costs in the device to make a higher profit. There is no benefit to the end consumer at all. The manufacturers are just trying to raise the barrier of entry of selling replacement parts to keep those prices artifically high.
Well, guess what? The consumer does have a voice in making things fair. It's called the government. That's why you elect them. It doesn't always work, but that's what it's for. And in this case, the free market has had years to fix the problem, and it has only gotten worse. The amount of cheering on this thread is evidence of the animosity towards this purely profit-taking process.
This is people, seeing a problem and taking an action to improve the end-consumer experience and reduce overall costs. And good for them. It's nice to see a government that isn't kow-towing to every exploitive commercial process within its borders.
The ______ Agenda
[snarky]So uhhh...have you ever seen the movie "Gone in 60,000 milliseconds"?[/snarky]
The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else's life. -FZ
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???
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
That's only partially true. While the phones use a standardized USB port for connection, some of them (at least the Verizon RAZR V3C and V3M) will give a message "Unauthorized charger" if you hook up a generic mini USB charger. There may be some kind of handshake required that only the $30 Motorolla chargers are guaranteed to perform. The article summary only mentions standardization of ports. I wonder if software control mechanisms will be eliminated as well...
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause