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Standardized Laptop Charger Approved By IEC
Sockatume writes "The IEC, the standards body which wrote the phone charger specification used in the EU, has approved a standardised laptop charger. While the 'DC Power Supply for Portable Personal Computer' doesn't have a legal mandate behind it, the IEC is still optimistic that it will lead to a reduction in electronics waste and make it easier to find a replacement charger. Unfortunately the technical documentation does not seem to be available yet, but previous comments indicate that it will be a barrel plug of some kind." I wish they'd push a yank-resistant and positive-connecting plug along the lines of Apple's MagSafe.
On a magnetic yank resistant plug
"I wish they'd push a yank-resistant and positive-connecting plug along the lines of Apple's MagSafe."
So would Apple since they have a patent on the MagSafe design. I suspect it would be quite the patent windfall.
Dell, HP, Alienware and other company will do anything in their power to not comply with this standard. This means less chance to get money out of customers pockets. Most companies, and I point DELL this time, uses a very much different exagonal type of connection which makes universal adapters a pain in the ass to find while others like HP and other old Dell laptops are usually easy to find and replace at a very cheap price. When it's not possible, you have to call the company to get a remplacement charger for a high enough price. But I would love to see a standard in this as it would make my job much easier
PC Gaming enthousiast that gives comments, opinions and reviews on Games. I'm just having fun with games while doing let
Just in time for laptop obsolescence.
And yet the Pogo charger performs the same function with the same magnetic disconnect mode. It's used by a handful of top tier tablets and phones, but clearly someone has found a loophole in Apple's patent for the connector, as it's functionally identical.
moox. for a new generation.
It's interesting actually... I genuinely wondered why you don't get mildly electrocuted when you touch the completely exposed connectors end of it, until I actually saw what they'd patented: What they've patented is that it won't provide power until it's acted on by exactly the right magnetic field to indicate that it's plugged into the laptop already.
At least for me, that passes all the tests of non-obviousness and first people to think of it.
They could cut down the number of leads by a factor of six if they used some sort of heavy-duty twisted-pair conductor. Then you'd have a Cat-5 of Nine Tails.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
If it was so obvious, why haven't anyone thought about it before Apple?
Two things come to mind: 1) The bottom line. Many companies don't always do the little things because it takes time and money to do things. I'm pretty sure an engineer from another company came up with great ideas but they were cut in planning/development. Apple will spend years on a product before releasing it and they will charge enough to make this strategy work. 2) Featuritis. Many companies focus on too many features. This is related to #1. Following the history of Apple, their products never have the most features. Apple seems to focus only on a handful of them and get them right before adding new ones. Geeks here don't appreciate that as Apple will never win the bullet point count, but for the average consumer they are less impressed with numbers of features than working features.
Take for example, the original iPod that synced automatically when you plugged in the cable. I think it was at Jobs' insistence that this be a 1-step process. Now doing so isn't technically difficult, but it takes coordination between hardware and software. It also required a philosophical change away from file/directory based transfer to one based on metadata. For example, most people don't care which directory/subdirectory their favorite songs where located but what they were (songs by The Rolling Stones, blue-grass songs, etc.). Now other companies might have been focused on other features like playing every format from Ogg to WMA or an equalizer with 11 bars, etc. Apple concentrated on making the UI simpler for the average consumer.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
> genuinely wondered why you don't get mildly electrocuted when you touch the completely exposed connectors end of it
Why would you expect to get mildly electrocuted by a low-power DC plug? The only danger w/o the magnetic control is that you'd fry the charger by shorting the plug.
Electrocution = Electro + execution = dead! There's nothing mild about dead!