| Mike Pirtle: Cell phone companies tease us on universal chargers |
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By: MIKE PIRTLE, Post President and Publisher
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Posted: Sunday, March 1, 2009 6:28 am
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Apparently the cell phone manufacturers have gotten word I am annoyed with them about all the discarded phone chargers most of us collect as we buy new phones and learn we must also buy a new charger.
My recent rant about tangles of old phone chargers undoubtedly echo the sentiment of many, well, I guess all unless some strange folk out there actually like paying for new stuff they shouldn’t need and being stuck with worthless stuff that burdens the environment.
For whatever reason, and I will take credit until proof to the contrary is presented, some of the cell phone companies are talking about moving toward a universal phone charger.
Yep, one charger that would re-power all the various types, models and brands of cell phones out there, or as people in the real world would put it: Common Sense.
Seems 50 million old cell phone chargers are discarded every year. Good golly, Miss Molly, 50 million? That seems ridiculous, but a little Internet surfing quickly reveals about three different ways, i.e., phones sold annually, waste streams, etc., that figure is certainly close to being correct.
Of course, when I thought about it, I deduced that I have lost, uh, make that temporarily misplaced, at least two phone chargers in less than a year. That’s unusual, but still it seems two years is about the average life of a cell phone, that the average of my wife who can use one for eight years or so and my son who manages to demolish, immerse or electronically bumfuzzle one in three months.
No cell phone, regardless of make, model or national origin, has ever fit the charging mechanism of a previous phone (well, maybe an iPhone, but I’m not sure it’s actually a phone. It’s a bunch of crap stuck together that also makes calls.)
If you buy a charger at a cell phone store, whoa, that’s also a lot of money.
The cell phone industry, however, apparently sees the handwriting on the wall, recognizing that customers are getting really ticked about the aggravation of orphan phone chargers, leading to realization of the hidden costs and with some increased concerns about environmental impact.
A couple are supposedly working on a universal charger. Problem is a couple of others aren’t, a couple more are working on something else and iPhone lives in a world of its own.
Getting down to two of three “universal” chargers would probably be an improvement, but, dagnabit, we deserve better.
And, while they are at it, we should demand some sort of universality for video games systems, power tools and all that other stuff they sell us that supposedly can be recharged.
I will bet that one out of two families with children with portable gaming systems loses the charger while on vacation each summer. I might be on the low end on the losses.
Yeah, and they should tell us how long those rechargeable batteries are actually going to last because they don’t last forever, especially with power tools like drills and screwdrivers.
They invariably die just as you start a project of some duration.
We have become accustomed to getting hosed by manufacturers but they could at least give us an expiration date, like food.
And, just how hard would it be to put the name of the manufacturer and product on the name of the accompanying charger?
Is that too much to ask? Is it too costly to stamp “Drill” into molded plastic so a charger can be distinguished from “Mini-vacuum” or “Cell phone” or “Outrageously priced video game system and you haven’t even seen what the actually games cost yet.”
Apparently so. Calling Black and Decker to see if someone could come over and tell me which of the four similar chargers in my tool closet actually goes to their power screwdriver that I really like would probably be out of the question.
I guess I will just plug the screwdriver into chargers until one makes the “charging” light come on and hope it is not also the indicator for “going to blow up real good soon.”
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On the same subject, just a different version of modern convenience and different industry, when are we going to get a universal machine for credit/debit cards?
I try to use a credit card for as much as possible because of the record-keeping that results and, since I figured out even before I had one that credit card, companies will expect you to pay them every month.
But, every place you go has a different machine. Push the “green” button for yes, punch third form left button for outside credit, sign the gray blank space with the Etchasketch pencil, don’t sign anything.
Jeez, how about one machine, one way to pay?
Oh, we’re just the customers. We don’t matter that much.
•••
So the forsythia are finally blooming and, as this is being written, snow is forecast for Saturday night. Must be spring. |
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