One Plug to Rule Them All? Discussion

The International Electrotechnical Commission looks to introduce a new universal notebook charger in a bid to cut down on electronic waste.

Read the full content of this Article: One Plug to Rule Them All?

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Normally I'm loathe to using just an image to answer a post, but I think it's quite fitting in this case.

 

I don't think that's going to be the case. It worked fine with mobile phones and there's no real reason why it wouldn't work with PSUs.
What would certainly help is if EU threw its weight behind it- in a similar manner to what they did with mobile phones.

US doesn't seem likely do do anything but EU with its 500 million customers has a tendency to regulate everything. If they do this it will be more trouble for manufacturers to keep different PSUs for EU and other markets than to roll out the same standard elsewhere.

Apple obviously won't comply though

 

A few reasons I'm not so optimistic:

1.- Phones have very short life cycles, unlike laptops. It's uncommon to see someone use the same phone for over 2 years, so it's easy to switch things around.
2.- Phones are usually charged once per day. Most people only need one charger for their phone, so it wasn't a big deal to ditch backwards compatibility with the new microUSB chargers. Many business users have multiple AC adapters, so it'd be a headache to switch to a new format.
3.- Phones all have approximately the same power requirements. Charging via microUSB is feasible for all phones, whereas different style plugs may be necessary for different types of laptops, ie a workstation versus an ultrabook.

We'll see what happens though!

 

It's certainly possible to do it for segments of the market. Between the low-power chipsets and the improved power draws of interconnects, we're going to be seeing laptops you can charge over USB in the next decade.

 

I'll just file this one under " Esperanto."

 

I think the HP Chromebook 11 already does this (when it's not catching fire).

 

Do the plug affect how much power go through, if not, they just need to make oem stop manf the psu linked to the plug.

 

Yes it does. You see this on phones a lot. My Kindle Keyboard and my Galaxy S3 both use a microUSB cable to charge, but if I try to charge my Galaxy S3 with the Kindle's microUSB, it takes a half-day to charge instead of an hour or so.

 

That's not caused by a plug but but different output of a PSU.
I got a new charger with my GS III (5V, 1A = 5W) but because my old charger has a longer cable I prefer using it (5V, 0.7A = 3.5W) so it stands to reason that it takes longer to charge the battery but that has nothing to do with a plug itself.

 

My understanding is that the barrel size dont matter, it is the pin inside that supply power, for laptop that it.

The wiki dont really tell much ~~

Coaxial power connector - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

How would a universal adapter work for delivering power to large gaming laptop and still small enough to carry around with an ultra portable?

 

More for the plug and not for the PSU itself.

 

It's just the plug they're talking about, not the power supply behind it. To my understanding, besides having a bunch of competing standards out there, this would possibly allow you to borrow a friend's HP charger to charge your Dell laptop, for example.

Perhaps it'll also allow an ultraportable to use a gaming laptop charger to charge very quickly (or catch fire) or allow a gaming laptop to use an ultraportable charger (and take forever to charge).

 

Good idea it gets my thumbs-up, hopefully the psu will take to the notebook and tell it it`s maximum wattage.

John.

 

I already do that. I have (several) 65W, 90W, 120W, 180W and 220W chargers for my laptops and their docking stations. A small 65W charger meant for a 12" laptop will also charge my workstation class laptop or lets me use it for web surfing all day. Naturally it isn't enough for continous 3D use. Likewise the 220W charger (it's almost as heavy as the 12") from my docking station will charge my 12" laptop if necessary.

Of course I'm limited to only one brand at the moment.

 

A Hp charger does charge dell laptop vice versa atm, though some model will throttle/behave weirdly due to their bios implementation.