After literally decades of having to scrabble through drawers full of cable to find the right charger for whatever brand/generation of phone you need to pull data from or just receive calls to, it looks like we’re finally getting some agreement from manufacturers on the “universal charger” idea.
Image courtesy of GadgetReview
For the moment, the big names backing the standardised charger include Apple, Nokia, RIM (that’s the Blackberry people, for those of you who hadn’t twigged) and Sony Ericsson. What’s particularly odd about the announcement is the news that the universal charger they’re touting will only work on European models of these manufacturers’ handsets.
DailyTech points out that the situation isn’t just more convenient, much as that is the case, but far more environmentally friendly. The introduction of a standardised phone charger would see far fewer old chargers rendered useless, which means a far lower number being dumped.
The real question, of course, is what format it’ll be in when we finally see the new universal charger. While we try not to be dreadfully cynical about every piece of good news that crosses our threshold, the lack of detail surrounding the charger’s hardware itself worries us a touch. We could very well end up with a “universal charger” that’s just a cable with a string of varying attachments allowing for connection to multiple manufacturers’ handsets. Ideally that’d not be the case, but it seems like the easiest way to manage it, given the fact that these chargers won’t work in the US.
You can read more, including some analysts’ breakdowns, at DailyTech, here.
