I have tried to persuade, or perhaps badger, friends in family to seeing my point of view on connectors. I have a hard time understanding why the USB connection can’t be more “universal”. I assume that consumer electronics companies want to make money off selling accessories, and why would you buy a new power adapter if the old one works perfectly well. I got a Motorola RAZR and a headset (I think the H500) a while back, and I am much more likely to buy Motorola products now, because the power adapters for these two products are interchangeable. In other words, rather than a differentiator, the USB connector for charging and data has become a standard item to be checked off of a functionality list. In much the same way, I really like the low-light abilities of Sony cameras. I am also satisfied with the optical quality on the Sony camera and camcorder I have, although I understand that they aren’t necessarily great across their entire product line. However, I doubt I will buy another Sony camera, because I feel that Memory Stick is a dead end. I would rather deal with SD (and I’m even willing to put up with the mini or micro offshoots). As a consumer, I refuse to go along with manufacturers in their attempt to churn out a constant stream of proprietary connectors or memory formats. So when I read about the new miCard, all I could think was, “here we go again”. At least in this case, they are promising some benefits of speed and storage size, but it is pretty gutsy to call a product that has yet to be produced a global standard. I’ll reserve judgment for the final product, if it ever ships.
Jun 202007