Micro-USB: to Tame the Tangle?

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Mini-USB: tiny enough?

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uploaded by Jordan Yerman

This one's actually a few days old, but still pertinent: every mobile phone manufacturer uses a different standard of phone charger, ranging from those little pluggy things to those little prongey things that I always break in about a week. When one switches to a new handset, the old handset's charger usually follows it into the bin, rather than enjoying redeployment as a secondary charger.

My current phone charges via mini-USB, which means, when I work remotely, I just charge it off my laptop. Since mini-USB is an already-established standard, I'm not entirely sure why phone manufacturers aren't switching to it already, rather than instituting a new, thinner standard (micro-USB), predicting "smaller models"... how small a phone can one really use? It has to be big enough for the keys to be pressable by a "normal" hand, and thick enough not to be inherently fragile: mobiles lead even more of a life of danger than mp3 players.

What I'm saying is, it sounds like mobile manufacturers are simply coming up with one more thing you'll have to buy, rather than actually solve the problem with existing technology.

This is, I think, the least-sexy story of the day, but hey.