Nokia has confirmed that its future mobile phones will have the ability to recharge using either the conventional 2mm Nokia charger, but will also support the micro USB charging option.
A standard for this micro USB-based universal charger option for mobile phones was agreed by mobile phone makers in late December, so that handsets from different makers can be charged using the same charging solution.
Nokia made the announcement in a blog post earlier this week.
“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,” said the blog.
Nokia said that the decision was good news because it meant that users didn’t need a new charger for their new mobile phone, and no longer meant hunting for someone in the office who has the same brand of phone when you need a power top-up away from home.
It cited the obvious green benefits, because the environmental impact created by discarding old chargers when users switch to other manufacturers’ devices will be eliminated.
Another green benefit is the potential ability of the phone makers to sell new mobile phones, without any chargers at all, a development which Nokia is currently piloting in order to gauge customer reaction.
Besides the e-waste benefits however, the new universal charger has previously been mooted to have close to a 50 percent reduction in standby energy consumption, coupled with the elimination of 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers, and a subsequent reduction of 13.6 million tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions each year.
The industry and European regulators have been discussing plans for a universal charger for a while now. It was back in June 2009 that the world’s largest phone makers signed up to the European standard for a standard micro-USB charger.
Then in October 2009, the concept received the backing of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialist agency of the United Nations.
What followed next, however, was a 14 month wait until last month, when the industry finally agreed to the universal charger standard.
The European Commission has launched a website on the subject, and Nokia has posted an online video here.
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We should mention one very good reason why Nokia is keeping the 2mm charger alongside micro-USB.
Some Nokia devices have a bi-directional USB port, which means that (given a female-male adapter cable) users can plug in hard drives and other USB memory.
Keeping the 2mm socket means that the phone can still be charged, even when the USB socket is in use for something else cool, like watching a long movie...
I believe this is a minority use case, the other advantage is that people upgrading from one Nokia to another, can keep the old charger in their office desk drawer for emergencies.
Peter Judge
Editor