China to make USB the standard for cell phone charging
According to news sources, China has decided to make USB the de-facto standard charger for all cell phones sold there. No enforcement target date has been set as of yet, but once it gets set, it will probably cost phone manufacturers and third party accessory makers a bit of dough.
Cell phone chargers are probably the most used accessory, as well as the most important one. Without them, the oh-so-useful cell phone becomes useless once the battery goes out. Of course, the manufacturers sell the phones with chargers to everyone, but that also means that the price of that charger is included in the retail price.
By having USB as a standard charger, a consumer would be able to charge his/her cell phone through various electronic equipment that are equipped with USB ports, hence eliminating the need for a separate charger altogether.
With such a huge population and market for cell phones, this move by China of course will not be taken lightly by those companies, and they’ll find some other way of coping with it. My bet is on “rapid” chargers that will allow faster and quicker charges than through USB connectivity. I think the marketing for “rapid” chargers will be increased to make people think they will save time on charging by a huge margin, thus compensating for the loss of regular chargers sold with cell phones.
Read [EverythingUSB]
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This is one of the best tech news because it will help eliminate the waste in our enviroment. It will eliminate the production of unecessary chargers, and also lower the final price of cellphones since the charger will be sold seperately for those that they won’t have another USB charger.
on January 20, 2007 at 12:08 AM - LINKBlackberry is being using this for a long time and it is about the others to follow.
It was about time for something like that.