Nothing should be more trivial than the shape of the power connector on your mobile phone. A bit of engineering for structural strength, plug retention, voltage and current, and that should be that.
If only. Instead, this tiny point of low technology has been behind the most enduring and annoying consumer rip-off of recent years. With certain honourable exceptions, mobile-phone companies change their charger connectors at the release of every other model, leaving users with enough redundant power bricks to build a housing estate. The waste is enormous, not to mention the risk of blowing an expensive phone up by plugging in the wrong charger and the hassle of finding a compatible charger when away from home.
This nonsense benefits the manufacturers at the expense of the consumer — and the planet. If you need a new or second charger, you'll have to buy one instead of reusing an old one, and at a substantial percentage of the cost of the phone. It's common practice to price accessories with a shockingly high margin to keep suppliers and retailers happy while screwing both to the wall over component costs and handset prices: constantly changing essential details keeps those accessories in play.
Not only does this cost us more in the long run, it leaves the handset makers in control of the market. If the end result was just a matter of ripping off the punters, then caveat emptor would apply. These days, though, the stakes are raised through the environmental consequences. Billions of mobile-phone users means billions of surplus power supplies, and all for lack of a common standard.
We therefore welcome the move by the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) forum to choose micro-USB as the standard for future devices. As the OMTP represents the makers of some 85 percent of handsets, this will rapidly create the same critical mass as we've seen with USB on the desktop: more gizmos, less money, saner planet.
An important solution to a trivial problem. Now, about those data-roaming charges...
Talkback
This really can't come fast enough - I have a bed-side drawer full of old phone power blocks - it's just madness.
Now that this standard has been proposed - it really highlights how the consumer has been played for years by these handset manufacturers and retailers. Charging twenty quid or more for a power block so that you can keep one at work and one at home is just outrageous.
The environmental issues are a big concern too - there are millions of junked handsets out there - but probably at least a third more power blocks floating about - which I am guessing aren't easy to recycle.
Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola - nice to see that you have decided to clean up your act but it's been a long time coming!
The same could be said for laptop PSUs. I work in a school and have two sets of laptops. Each brand takes the same current and voltage, but have physically different power connections.
I have the constant problem of users forcing the wrong power supply into a laptop and breaking the connector which can be very expensive to repair.
A common standard may also reduce prices, currently at around £30 for a replacement PSU.
Please! Can laptops makers do the same and adopt a common standard.
Sounds like an obvious follow-up story Lee - thanks for that - we'll put the question to some of the big PC makers and see what they come back with - probably gumpf about "making the optimum power supply for their machines delicate sensibilities" but we are not going to let them off that lightly ;-) If this can be done for mobiles then there is no reason it can't be done for desktops and laptops.
What machines in particular are you having the problems with?
It's good to be able to make a contribution!
The laptops we have at the moment are RM Mobile One (popular in schools - I don't know who actually makes them) and Acer Travelmate 2350.
Both are 19V 3.16A, but have different sized plugs. Forcing and Acer PSU into an RM laptop breaks the connector on the PSU. The delicate wires inside the barrel get pushed down to the end. £30 instant damage!
We also had some Samsungs a couple of years ago, and had several made useless by damage to the connector on the laptop - very expensive.
Desktop and monitor PSUs have had used IEC connectors since the AT form factor, maybe earlier. Could the IEC devise a standard for laptops and other mobile electricals? Is this the kind of thing the IEC do?