News - EU votes yes to universal mobile phone charger

[crossy]

You're picking and choosing what kind of reality/logic you like to follow.. You mention PSU and the choice to go between £8 or £60 and then here you're expecting consistency from the charges.

Actually going to disagree on this - to an extent. Getting down to basics, there's not that much difference between basic PSU and phone/tablet charger, both fulfilling the same core function.

Where I'm going to agree is that the standardisation that the EU's bringing will - like the PSU market - surely encourage the better producers to want to differentiate their products from the "£5 from Tesco, no name" ones.

What I'd like to see - and it's easily done - is for the phone chargers to follow that PSU route. Sure you can get the no-name, don't-ask-any-questions ones (but you're a prat if you buy those), but I'd guess most of the Hexians will be looking for features like modular connections, good efficiencies, low noise, etc.

Similarly for the phone chargers, increased efficiencies is the most obvious route - maybe even take on the "80+" certification scheme used for PSU's? We're already seeing dual chargers that can do phone and tablet (although not Samsung ones - don't get me started on that!), and charging points included in normal mains extension leads/blocks. Someone I was speaking to was asking why someone doesn't do an extended battery pack that includes wireless charging - so you gain more capacity and wireless charging on your phone at the expense of a little bit of extra bulk.

Oh Saracen, I've found the "£8 v's £60 PSU" argument dead easy:
1. You've got zero comeback on the £8 charger - good luck trying to get a warranty claim from "Wang Cho Puk Industries". On the other hand folks like Corsair, beQuiet, Antec, etc are easily reachable - even via Hexus in the case of Corsair.
2. £8 will be noisier;
3. £8 will be less efficient, using up valuable electricity to produce heat that then has to be got rid of;
4. The £8 one will be "just good enough", whereas the more expensive PSU can probably be redeployed for the next build. It's only the move from 20pin to 24pin ATX plug that forced me to junk my 6 year old Enermax PSU, (and yes I know, there's converter plugs, but it didn't have SATA plugs either).

Funnily enough #3 and #4 are usually the key points for most people.

[DanceswithUnix]

Where I'm going to agree is that the standardisation that the EU's bringing will - like the PSU market - surely encourage the better producers to want to differentiate their products from the "£5 from Tesco, no name" ones.

That has already happened, I have a couple of multi port chargers that proudly claim they can charge two tablets at once distributing 2.5A or 3.5A between the two ports. Given that devices only seem to pull 2A from the socket when they are first plugged in and tail off as they charge up, 2.5A works well.

OTOH, I am getting used to cheap PSUs coming bundled with things like routers and phones from dying long before the device they are supposed to be powering.

A plea if any manufacturers read this post: If you insist on including an ultrabright power on blue LED in your charger design, please give me a facility to turn it off or at the very least turn it down from the weapons grade "on" that still lights the room at night under 10 layers of brown parcel tape.

[crossy]

That has already happened, I have a couple of multi port chargers that proudly claim they can charge two tablets at once distributing 2.5A or 3.5A between the two ports.

I'm still amazed that Samsung managed to get away with their "our cable and our charger" rubbish for the larger Note and Tab tablets.. Strangely enough the smaller (8" and below) devices seem to use the "standard" lead but a 2A charger. Now I can see a point to the dedicated cable where that charging point is also used for battery/keyboard docks, but the dedicated charger seems like protectionism.

A plea if any manufacturers read this post: If you insist on including an ultrabright power on blue LED in your charger design, please give me a facility to turn it off or at the very least turn it down from the weapons grade "on" that still lights the room at night under 10 layers of brown parcel tape.

Agree, the Virgin Media Stupid, sorry "Super", Hub rev 1 had that "feature. No exaggeration to say it can light up a small bedroom by itself. Since I assume a lot of these routers will be in bedrooms, this seems like a massive oversight. Even if it's in the living room (lounge if you prefer) then what happens if you're trying to watch a film.

I tried the parcel tape too - didn't work that well. I've had best results from using Maplin's white double sided foam tape - two layers of that mute the light nicely. Actually Maplins sell a black coloured tape that's a good width to cover up leds, that might be even better at attenuating the light pollution - I think it's marked as for motoring uses.

[DanceswithUnix]

I tried the parcel tape too - didn't work that well. I've had best results from using Maplin's white double sided foam tape - two layers of that mute the light nicely. Actually Maplins sell a black coloured tape that's a good width to cover up leds, that might be even better at attenuating the light pollution - I think it's marked as for motoring uses.

Hmm good call. I have some insulating tape in the garage in various colours including black, but one year on from moving house that area is still a work in progress so not sure where it is. That does sound like the tool for the job, I shall have a look.

For small LEDs I often find a small blob of blu-tak can discretely block them over, I had a bedroom TV before with a slight recess for the power LED where that worked really well.

Perhaps we need the EU to standardise non stupid power status lighting too