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S Korea & China Mandate Common Chargers, Data Cables
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Dec 20, 2006 08:42 AM
from the dear-god-please-yes dept.
from the dear-god-please-yes dept.
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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Mandate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How will those poor struggling phone manufacturers will make a living if they can't sell an adapter for $39.99?
And imagine the shock of...having everyone connect their phone upto their PC via USB without buying some proprietary hookup? (and having to re-buy that hookup every time someone upgrades the phone?). That's a lot of $$$!
Re:Mandate (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mandate (Score:5, Insightful)
I've wanted manufacturers to standardize on USB for a few years now. It would truly be wonderful, as many of you have been happy to point out. But what happens when something better comes along? What happens when someone has a great idea, but finds out he can't legally implement it?
I don't know what that idea may be. It could be the ability to safely and seamlessly hop amperage and voltage to much higher levels based on communication between power-only hubs and devices. It may be an even better connection. It may be much faster data that requires two more wires. I really don't know.
If it was an industry association mandating the standard, it would be different. Mavericks with good ideas could at least go it alone and see if anyone bites. Industry giants reading good press about the new connection could push for a change and get it.. That actually happens in the marketplace, but governments don't even come close to moving that quickly. If the law prevents people from getting a new idea to market until the law is changed, or government bureaucracy grinds along, it'll put a big damper on innovation.
Once again, I like USB and I would love all my portable devices to be recharged by it, but once you make differences illegal, you end up paying a heavy price. We shouldn't celebrate a great idea at the moment if it means we'll pay dearly down the road.
TW
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well they could release the product with the standard cable and then sell the new, improved cable as an additional purchase. If the new cable is actually better then people will pay the extra money to get it and it probably woul
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If I prefer to make a device that uses floppy disks or DVDs for data transfer, no one is going to stop me. Despite the fact that the industry standardizes on cans of about the same size, manufactures felt plenty free to start making plastic bottles. Nothing in America says I have to use a gas
Hooray!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Way to go! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Way to go! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Considering how large the old connector is, what else could they have done to decrease its footprint in newer, slimmer phones?
Not only positive (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what you're talking about. I've had Nokia phones over the last ten years with at least six different connectors for data cables and handsfree systems (21xx series - eg 2190, 61xx series - eg 6185, 9000, 9290, 3220 (actually my wife's), and 6010 (that bizarre 1.8mm handsfree jack.) Even counting just the last five years (6185, 9290, 3220, and 6010), that's four completely different connectors. In terms of current model range, I believe there are phones covering three different, incompatible, co
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I had the same problem. There is a solution [nokiausa.com]. It does cost more money though and I wish that they hadn't changed it.
It would be nice if all chargers become interchangeable though. I think that will lead to phones coming without chargers as you can either use you older ones or buy them seperately.
Or do the dual thing... (Score:3, Interesting)
amperage (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
[snarky]So uhhh...have you ever seen the movie "Gone in 60,000 milliseconds"?[/snarky]
Re:amperage (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:amperage (Score:5, Informative)
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
Parent
Re:amperage (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
FINALLY (Score:2, Insightful)
You'd be pretty pissed if you could only use a GM-approved fill neck for your car. Why is your phone any different?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:FINALLY (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Because they don't care enough to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
And what about laptops... (Score:2, Interesting)
Mostly good news for consumers (Score:2, Interesting)
I would personally rather see more features, better battery life or enhanced reception than plug standardization.
Anyway, the USB port standard is pretty marginal. I've found them not to be all that durable, especially if you have to plug/unplug items frequently - like one will likely do
Re:Mostly good news for consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most certainly. But there's definately printer & ink, razor & blades etc. pricing going on here, where they offer you a subsidized price they'll recover through accessories. If they can't count on profits later they need profits now, so expect phone prices to rise. But mostly it's cutthroat on the main item and recovery on all sorts of extras ("extended warranty" anyone?) so it's
Don't get too excited just yet.... (Score:3, Insightful)
an example everyone should follow (Score:2)
But the FREE MARKET! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But the FREE MARKET! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oligopolies are not "free market". The current situation produces the best result for the manufacturer
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The free market DOES produce the bes
Who cares? Anyone with more than one device! (Score:3, Interesting)
When my wife and I travel, we have to carry the following chargers:
1 for my phone
1 for her phone
1 for the laptop
1 for the PDA
1 for the camera
Sure, it means we can recharge everything at once if we have to. But it also means we have to carry 5 items that do the same thing. That's wasted clutter.
Now, if each device used the same connectors and voltage, we could cut that down to one charger. That would b
now let's get them in cars! (Score:5, Interesting)
I Concur (Score:2)
Yea (Score:3, Informative)
And I'll bet with these standard cables, Monster Cable will develop a super-editition with gold-plated connectors, etc, etc! Only $100! LOL.
Waiting for the same for laptop chargers (Score:2)
Summary is wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Summary is wrong and so are you (Score:4, Informative)
You are so wrong.
You do not need a laptop to 'USB-charge'
You can pick up a USB Mains Charger [google.fi] for as little as 5 USD.
Parent
Re:Summary is wrong and so are you (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Motorola is already doing it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Motorola is already doing it - ALMOST (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
USB? (Score:3, Insightful)
Otherwise if they mean that all phones have to be charged by a USB port to a computer alone that would make less than zero sense. Considering, as others here have pointed out, not all USB ports draw enough current, it doubly makes less than zero sense.
Wagging the dog (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the second example, but certainly not the last, where China has set a defacto standard for us. Here's what they did with DVD formats [slashdot.org].
When a country owns all your manufacturing capacity, you can't really tell them no. Who else is going to make stuff for you? Plus we owe them billions on the trade deficit.
And this is only the warm up act. DVD formats and cables, little stuff. Wait until we start rolling over on the big stuff! ROFL! Maybe we'll wake up to obvious one of these days.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you lived in either country? I've lived in both, and believe me, these days I'll take China (where I'm living now) over the peninsula any day of the week.
Oh, and since when is governmental mandatory hardware configuration democratic..?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The free market dictates that nothing works together, so that the businesses maximize profit. This is an automatic collusion. Smith said that no two businessmen ever met that didn't immediately collude to fix their market; he might have added that some markets require no actual collusion, that some exploitation is just obvious.
This is one of the reasons we have governments. It's al
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can get a USB power adapter that plugs directly into the wall and provides power to a USB port, or a portable unit that powers a USB port from 4 AA batteries (one version called the "JAVOBooster" has a built-in flashlight as a bonus). Both are likely to be cheaper than the outrageously marked-up proprietary power bricks (even before taking into account the fact that you need one total