...and that is a very welcome development indded. Mobile phone companies involved in this development include Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Orange, 3, AT&T and Vodafone.

The new chargers will use the standard micro-USB connector as the common charging interface and many of us will know them from digital cameras.

As they will become standard, eventually chargers won't be supplied with new mobiles because customers will already have compatible chargers and it'll save on electronic waste having to be recycled or ending up in landfill. There's more here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7894763.stm.

Right now, I'll bet that many of us have quite a few old, unusable and incompatible mobile chargers lying around and hopefully that'll become a thing of the past.

That article is 2 years old!

Still valid

"The majority of new handsets will support the re-charger by 2012."

It'll never happen...

erm, it all ready has. Sony E and Nokia have changed to them, and HTC use it amongst others.

I got my universal charger with my San Francisco.
Its the size and looks of a 3 amp plug.

You'll never get Apple to agree.

They have to and will more than likely implement it by including a dock to micro USB adaptor with their devices.

it's happened. Our htc and samsung chargers are interchangeable. Same connectors and same output ratings... and the inlaws LG uses the same.

I still want new stuff with a new phone though.

It's a good idea and as I hate Apple it's good to make them do something they don't want to coz they hate it. I use my old Blackberry charger on my HTC and even if I do lose it I can use one of my Camera USB cables from my laptop instead. Very good Idea and makes sense.

Slightly newer artical

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...SB-design.html

My last 3 phones have all been compatible. Motorola, Samsung and now Blackberry, makes SO much more sense

Indeed, markrduk, but what l should have done is added this second link here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f3qjf as well from last month which confirms that agreement has at last been reached and that it's definitely going to next year when the new universal chargers start being introduced. Apologies for the oversight.

Good idea, but why MICRO-USB, which is rather small, fiddly and delicate and NOT the same as MINI-USB, the type widely used by HTC and most (non-Apple) smart phones and loads of cameras and computer products. So far as I am aware, almost no phones currently use micro-USB connectors though some brands of cameras do. Some brands of external hard drives have recently started using micro-USB connectors and there have been complaints of socket failures. Would have been better if mini-USB had been chosen as the industry standard.

"Start being introduced"? Micro-USB has been around for at least 2 years.

The only problem at the moment is that I have a mixture of mini- and micro-USB devices so I need to carry around two sets of cables. Mini-USB is on its way out though.

powermats are the future.

My desire, nokia n85, nokia n86 all use micro USB, my old motorola razr v3x used mini USB.

I have found Mini-USB more common... except the more recent HTC devices for some reason. I haven't had any problems with Mini myself, and I get irked when I come across a Micro-USB device because it's yet another switch so soon.

From my understanding, the standard chargers just have standard (Type A) USB sockets on them. The chargers are interchangeable with any brand. There is a bit of scope however for the phone manufacturers to provide their own lead/adapter to connect their phone to the charger and/or computer. These can be Mini-USB, micro-USB or whatever the manufacturer prefers. But if the cable has to be micro-USB then so be it. Smaller the better.

Mini USB is used a lot on Compact cameras. I have only ever sen 1 other phone (Old nokia from 4 years ago) using mini USB.
My past 5 phones have used micro usb from nokia, LG, HTC and Blackberry.

Almost, yeah.

The common external power supply (EPS) can either have a direct cable output to a Micro-B plug OR have a USB-A socket.

On the device side the standard requires a Micro-B socket as said previously, but a proprietary connector (such as Apple's dock connector) is still permitted as long as the device ships with an adaptor to interface with the proprietary connector and accept a Micro-B input.

So, to continue using Apple as an example their iDevice mains adaptor has a USB-A socket so already complies with the common EPS requirement, and the iPhone only needs to ship with a dock connector to Micro-B socket adaptor to comply.