Common chargers are on the way

You may well have seen news
emerge of a new standard for a Common Charger for mobile phones with which major players in the phone manufacturing business have agreed to make their new devices compliant. That includes Nokia, of course. If it isn’t already obvious, click through to find out why this is good news for you, the industry and the environment.

Following the recent publication of charging standards, the new chargers will use the micro-USB connector – already in use for the data connection in many smartphones.

The majority of current Nokia devices already support micro USB based charging, going forward this will be the industry standard. In addition Nokia’s standard 2mm charger will continue to be supported, so standard Nokia chargers will still be useable as well.

This is good news in three ways:

- It makes life easier. You won’t need to buy a new charger for your new device, hunt through your drawer of old chargers or hope that someone in the office has the same brand of phone when you need a top-up away from home.

- The waste and environmental impact created by old, discarded chargers that no longer work when you change manufacturer for your new device, will be eliminated.

- Environmental impact may be reduced by the ability to sell phones without chargers (a development currently being piloted by Nokia to gauge customer reaction).

Do not forget, old unneeded chargers can be brought to one of the 50,000 Nokia Recycling Points – where they can be completely recycled to make new components.

This is all good news, of course, and eminently sensible. What’s your view?

There’s a video introducing the initiative here. Update: Since we published this post, the European Commission has launched an entire website about the development. Head over to OneChargerforAll.eu for more information.

Footnote;
A memorandum of understanding – indicating their intention to adopt the new standard – was signed by Nokia was in June 2009 and to date 13 other companies including Apple, Emblaze Mobile, Huawei Technologies, LGE, Motorola, NEC, Qualcomm, Research in Motion (RIM), Samsung, SonyEricsson, TCT Mobile (ALCATEL mobile phones), Texas Instruments and Atmel.