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EU Committee Votes To Make All Smartphone Vendors Utilize a Standard Charger
Deathspawner writes "The EU has been known to make a lot of odd decisions when it comes to tech, but one committee's latest vote is one that most people will likely agree with: Standardized smartphone chargers. If passed, this decision would cut down on never having the right charger handy, but as far as the EU is concerned, this is all about a reduction of waste. The initial vote went down on Thursday, and given its market saturation, it seems likely that micro USB would be the target standard. Now, it's a matter of waiting on the EU Parliament to make its vote."
20% less cool and half the amps..
Not a huge problem for your iPhone probably. But definitely a problem for your iPad.
And literally (really literally not emphatically literally) the iPad chargers are not less cool. They get pretty warm :-)
No need to legislate this. Most people I know go out of their way to avoid buying products that don't charge with a USB connector if they can avoid it - at least computer-related products.
Me, the last device I bought with a special charger was a Casio Exilim camera that has unique enough features that I had no other choice. But I hate that charger each time I have to carry it with me on business trips when I already carry a USB charger that takes care of all my other devices.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I had a micro USB connector break on my phone recently. The phone was just under four years old (Samsung Vibrant) so I got a new one, but removing the old connector from the vibrant, cutting up the old cable and soldering it straight to the board where the cable used to be let me get my last week's data off. Replacing the micro USB connector would have been easy enough, they're jellybean parts. Four years, assuming I only plugged it in/removed the plug twice a day, is 2920 uses. I actually probably came near 4x that, so about 11k insertion/removals. Micro USB is designed for 10k, so it very likely outlasted its design lifetime.
Not a sentence!
I must have been holding it wrong, right?!?!
Well let's put it this way. MicroUSB connectors were designed specifically so that the plug was sacrificial. I use them a lot for hobby electronics, and my phones I use at work for convenient usb storage. I would on average plug them in 10+ times per day. I have had a lot of the cables fail, like they are supposed to, but I've never seen a device itself fail.
Anyway this is all beside the point. I'll open the floor back to you to tell us what alternative plug you can suggest. Only criteria is that it has a current carrying capacity higher than 1A, is capable of supporting high speed data transfer, can be easily centred and inserted without looking and is no more than 3mm high.
By the way I assume you took the device to get repaired right? I mean surely you didn't throw it out or replace it because a $0.60 component (in single quantities), which any competent soldering iron user could replace, broke right?
If you didn't then shame on you.