Camera Phones Plaza

We’ve heard it all before. The last news that circulated over the Internet about a universal cell phone charger was related to a project developed by GSMA. Back then, a wild estimation has been made: it was said that by the end of 2012 most of the phones available in the market would be charged using a standard Micro USB charger.



It sounded like a very crazy and ungrounded idea, but here we have some information that’s even more overwhelming: it seems that starting next year customers will be able to find in the European market the phones that are to be compatible with these universal chargers, or at least this is what the EU executive said.



“People will not have to throw away their charger whenever they buy a new phone”, said Guenter Verheugen, EU Industry Commissioner. And trust me, there are so many phone accessories that are wasted each year in the European countries and we’re talking about thousands of tons. Not to mention the fact that according to some estimations concerning the same continent there are more than 400 million cell phones that are being for the moment and approximately 185 million units are being purchased each year.

The companies that joined the team of those who agreed to adopt the solution of a universal charger and to bring compatible devices in the market starting next year are Apple, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Texas Instruments. It seems that the handsets that will be compatible with these chargers will be data-enabled ones.

Up until that 2010, we’re waiting for the EU norm that we were promised according to which the next generation of cell phones would be based on a standard micro-USB socket.

(Source: Reuters)