Micro

I have dealt with Micro USB for over a decade now. And I’m almost at my wit’s end with this thing’s zombie-like afterlife.

Just like that famous SMBC comic, older USB ports are infamous for their hard-to-insert nature, the fiddly design, and, in the cell phone era, all those stupid adapters.

Micro USB was the smallest you could get and still work pretty decently. It’s all I ever knew for many many years. It sucked, but I never knew anything better.

And then the innovations came. First came Apple’s lightning cables and all the endless frustrations with those. Then came that one year where Samsung Galaxy S5 had an extra-wide fast charging port that no other phone ever supported. Then came thinner, lighter laptops and tablets that ditched our steadfast USB-A to save space and kept trying to improve the micro.

Thunderbolt, which I thought was the same as Lightning and was formerly Apple exclusive, suddenly became popular in many devices. And its cousin, USB-C, became totally dominant. And that’s a very good thing. Easy to plug in, fast charging, great data transfer speeds, and, of course, universal.

Once Europe finally forced Apple to ditch Lightning, the world finally became a USB-C heaven. No more stupid adapters and weird proprietary cables everywhere. My first USB-C device was a phone in 2016, then the Nintendo Switch in early 2017, and since then it’s slowly taken over nearly every part of my life.

But even still… Micro USB still lingers on. Quietly, with a sinister smile every time it rears its ugly head.

All the way in 2022, I got a pack of rechargeable batteries, and the dock was… USB Micro. Forcing me to keep an extra plug in my power strip just for that.

I got some nice J-Lab headphones in 2023, good quality, good battery–and USB Micro charging port for whatever reason. It also shorted out and broke like 6 months later mysteriously, which is probably a sign.

My much-used Amazon Kindle, my last major Micro USB device, finally went by the wayside just last week when I bought a brand-new Kobo Libra Color. But…

But.

The stupid 3rd party smart pen I bought with it charges with Micro USB!!!!

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh