How Many Different USB Cables Do You Own

[Prang]

Why cant they make 1 standard USB cable?

In our house with 3 of us we have my Pentax , my wife's Canon point and shoot, 3 different mobile phones and card readers all with there own USB Cables, none of which seem to work with each other!!

They even look the same ,same size and everything which makes it a guessing game to pick the right one.

Anyone else find the same?Maybe we can start a action group?

The only consultation is when it comes to Battery Chargers it,s worse.

Thanks for listening Prang

[bigbikes]

I agree totally with you. I dont know how many there are in my house, but what I do know is that whenever you open a draw, you will always find a USB cable.
There are just to many to count. I also have 4 in my car, all phone charges for different phones as well

[old dog]

I have three that fit my D80. One that came with it, one from Julies canon P&S and another from a little photo keyring thingy she got for mums day. I`m happy.

[yummymummy]

I have one for the Canon, one for the fuji, one for the kids P&S, one for my mp3 player, and one for my sons mp3 player, one for the photo keyring that I got for christmas, one for my phone, one for hubbys phone, one for 1st sons and one for 2nd sons phone... I made little sticky labels and taped them to each of them with the name of the thing it goes with just so I dont get them mixed up!

[joffa]

I've always found that they were the same, just different lengths. As long as the plug fits in the device they all seem to work with each other. Must be just lucky I guess?

[etherial]

Many phone manufacturers have got together and there will be a common system for charging coming out which uses a micro usb cable, so I guess thats a start towards some kind of standardization.

Extract from a news article on Cnet:
"The Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) -- a forum dominated by networks but including manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG -- announced that its members had agreed on micro-USB as the future common connector."

[Kym]

There are 6 USB connector types...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Types_of_USB_connector

But phone companies also do their own non standard ones at the phone end.

[Analog6]

My USB B cables (little oblongy end) all seem to be interchangeable, I use the one from the Canon for the media card reader or the external disj drive OK. Ditto with the USB A cables (the big squarish ended ones).

[pgbphotographytas]

I have a set of the 6 common ones that I use in my work mainly but I hate devices (mainly mobile phones) that use non standard ones

[Miaow]

I have 3 - canon - kodak p&S, printer - not sure if the printer ones different as I havent unplugged it. Mobile phones for some reason never came with a cable

[DzRbenson]

I have so many usb cables and so many chargers.

5 kids and my partner and I, It gets messy

[Tannin]

Many phone manufacturers have got together and there will be a common system

As I understand it, they did this after the European Commission banged their heads together and said "we have had enough of this selfish, greedy mania for making customers spend extra money and waste precious resources to buy a zillion different, incompatible chargers at inflated can't-buy-it-from-the-competition prices. Sort it out between yourselves or we will make you feel sorry you didn't".

[Seesee]

I have 3 - canon - kodak p&S, printer - not sure if the printer ones different as I havent unplugged it. Mobile phones for some reason never came with a cable

Yeah ....why dont mobiles come with them, mine didn't and for the life of me cant get one to fit the itsy bitsy port on the phone....and a dongle I bought is useless it seems

[Kym]

As I understand it, they did this after the European Commission banged their heads together and said "we have had enough of this selfish, greedy mania for making customers spend extra money and waste precious resources to buy a zillion different, incompatible chargers at inflated can't-buy-it-from-the-competition prices. Sort it out between yourselves or we will make you feel sorry you didn't".

What about 'chipped' printer cartridges? HP & Canon are crooks in this area.

[Prang]

When you look at it, what Tannin said "spend extra money and waste precious resources"
it is criminal that so much stuff is just wasted, imagine if we had 2 USB's the big one and the little one and you could use them for all the gadgets.
We could buy both separate and the gadget manufacturers wouldn't have to supply one each time.

Let's hope.

Cheers Peter

[KeithD]

Just love the technical talk,keep up the good work.
KeithD