Comments on: One week in: Life with a Palm Pre http://www.innismir.net/article/333 Pointless, vapid ramblings of a surly information security engineer Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Jeremy http://www.innismir.net/article/333/comment-page-1#comment-173 Jeremy Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:27:37 +0000 http://www.innismir.net/?p=333#comment-173 I've known people with Sprint in my area and they say the same thing about the coverage, but for what they get price vs. features they claim it is worth it. Personally I stick with AT&T, but I know T-Mobile and Verizon customers that say the same thing. Anyway, the point I wanted to comment about is the MicroUSB charger port. I agree with you in that everything I have uses MiniUSB. I'm currently an AT&T Tilt (HTC Kaiser) user, which uses the modified MiniUSB. My Cingular 2125 (HTC Faraday) I used prior to this also used it, as did my wife's Blackberry (don't even get me started on those pieces of junk.) When I got my new phones, before I'd decided on which one, I had determined I will stick with MiniUSB. That being said, I remember reading an article a while back about the handset manufacturers agreeing to the MicroUSB as a standard going forward. While it may inconvenience some of us in the short term, if they do in fact adhere to that standard it will be a big advantage in the long run. Sure we may have to replace all our accessories, but in theory it should be the last time. Environmentally it is a very sound plan too, it will no longer be necessary to ship chargers with every phone as when upgrading your old charger(s) will continue to work. This saves not only the cost of the charger, but the cost for additional packaging, shipping weight, and landfill space. Carriers could still provide a "free" charger when you sign up for a new plan (or upgrade from a non-MicroUSB phone) and if you do buy an extra or two or three, you'll be assured you won't be throwing it away a year from now when you upgrade phones again. I still run across old random cell chargers when I go through old boxes in my storage unit. Personally I like the MiniUSB connector better, it just seems to be more rugged and has better retention strength, and I wish they would have used it for the standard instead. But regardless, I don't care if they use some weird DIN style connector with a magnet in it, if they all use the same one, I'm all for it. Jeremy (KB7QOA, jjhall on Twitter) I’ve known people with Sprint in my area and they say the same thing about the coverage, but for what they get price vs. features they claim it is worth it. Personally I stick with AT&T, but I know T-Mobile and Verizon customers that say the same thing.

Anyway, the point I wanted to comment about is the MicroUSB charger port. I agree with you in that everything I have uses MiniUSB. I’m currently an AT&T Tilt (HTC Kaiser) user, which uses the modified MiniUSB. My Cingular 2125 (HTC Faraday) I used prior to this also used it, as did my wife’s Blackberry (don’t even get me started on those pieces of junk.) When I got my new phones, before I’d decided on which one, I had determined I will stick with MiniUSB.

That being said, I remember reading an article a while back about the handset manufacturers agreeing to the MicroUSB as a standard going forward. While it may inconvenience some of us in the short term, if they do in fact adhere to that standard it will be a big advantage in the long run. Sure we may have to replace all our accessories, but in theory it should be the last time.

Environmentally it is a very sound plan too, it will no longer be necessary to ship chargers with every phone as when upgrading your old charger(s) will continue to work. This saves not only the cost of the charger, but the cost for additional packaging, shipping weight, and landfill space. Carriers could still provide a “free” charger when you sign up for a new plan (or upgrade from a non-MicroUSB phone) and if you do buy an extra or two or three, you’ll be assured you won’t be throwing it away a year from now when you upgrade phones again. I still run across old random cell chargers when I go through old boxes in my storage unit.

Personally I like the MiniUSB connector better, it just seems to be more rugged and has better retention strength, and I wish they would have used it for the standard instead. But regardless, I don’t care if they use some weird DIN style connector with a magnet in it, if they all use the same one, I’m all for it.

Jeremy (KB7QOA, jjhall on Twitter)

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