There's no doubt that the adoption of a single micro-USB-based charger standard that works across all your gadgets – rather than the old system of needing a separate charger for each of them – is very much a good thing.
But if one charger works across most of our consumer electronics devices, why does every new device we buy have to come with its own charger? Why indeed.
O2 and HTC has decided now's the time to move on, and so future HTC phones on the network will ship without one, and will come with just a micro-USB cable rather than a full charger.
“I have a simple vision for O2: we want to take chargers out of boxes full stop,” O2 boss Ronan Dunne told Pocket-lint.
“Right now, O2 with HTC has to go it alone on this matter – we both believe in it passionately enough that we can't wait for the industry as a whole to join us in this crusade.”
We agree with the sentiment in principle, but let's face it: a decision to effectively give you less for your money an act of self-sacrificing. And trying to pretend it is just turns the whole thing into little more than a marketing gimmick.
