Different cable connections

[Oliver Hardy]

Most of my stuff electronic stuff is USB type mini, but bought a new tablet and it has a all new is it type C connection, I know it is faster but why does it have to be different?

[Digger]

You answered your own question, hence you asked a daft question

Technology moves on. Mini USB is an utter pain these days!

[Oliver Hardy]

Did I? Fail to get why it has to be a different size!

Got hundreds of the old style cables now I have to buy new ones

[xeny]

They took the opportunity to make the connector reversible while changing the speed spec.

Last time I looked adapters aren’t that expensive.

[Alorotom]

Mini usb hasn’t been particularly common for years now.

It was superseded by micro usb a long time ago, which has also had its fair run and was horrendously fragile and flawed in design.

A type C cable will have been included in the box and I’m pretty sure when I was last in PoundLand they had type C cables and adapters in there

[tight fart]

Haven’t the EU passed a law on cables and gone for usb c?

[dontlookdown]

It may be faster and 'better' tech but at what cost? The cycle of obsolescence for this kind of thing is way too fast. How many thousands of miles of superseded cables etc are lying unused in drawers all over the world? Meanwhile raw materials are in ever shorter supply and the environmental costs of producing them are increasingly unsustainable.

The industry's entire attitude has to change, imo.

[Paul Drawmer]

dontlookdown said:

It may be faster and 'better' tech but at what cost? The cycle of obsolescence for this kind of thing is way too fast. How many thousands of miles of superseded cables etc are lying unused in drawers all over the world? Meanwhile raw materials are in ever shorter supply and the environmental costs of producing them are increasingly unsustainable.

The industry's entire attitude has to change, imo.

So; do you want to stifle consumer demand for improvement, or discourage industry from progress?

[wildoliver]

Tbf the small usb standards were a complete pain, especially when used in applications a full size usb could have fitted. Usb c is a huge step forward, compact, reversible, fast, decent power transfer capabilities. Plus it seems to be less damage prone. Hopefully one of the next steps forward will be a standardisation on fast charging protocols, it would be lovely if a charger and cable for one brand would operate at its maximum deliverable power provided the device can accept it.

[Alorotom]

tight fart said:

Haven’t the EU passed a law on cables and gone for usb c?

Yup.

[dontlookdown]

Paul Drawmer said:

dontlookdown said:

It may be faster and 'better' tech but at what cost? The cycle of obsolescence for this kind of thing is way too fast. How many thousands of miles of superseded cables etc are lying unused in drawers all over the world? Meanwhile raw materials are in ever shorter supply and the environmental costs of producing them are increasingly unsustainable.

The industry's entire attitude has to change, imo.

So; do you want to stifle consumer demand for improvement, or discourage industry from progress?

Neither. I absolutely want progress - real progress not just yet another new 'standard' that isn't really a standard and more obsolete stuff whose materials are basically unusable and unrecoverable.

The circular economy I guess, certainly we have to get a lot better at reusing what we already have. That means proper cyclical supply chains that don't end in waste dumps (or drawers) and a lot more thought given by marketers and product designers to whether the latest wheeze is actually viable in a whole life sense.

Tbh many industries face similar issues, but tech has more than it's fair share of brains and innovators, so I'd like to see it take a lead in solving these problems.