Micro USB is notorious for being total garbage. The port breaks at a drop of a hat, the connector bends out of shape (or even snaps) over time, and if not that, the connector often still sits pretty loosely in the port, sometimes enough to fall out later in its lifetime.
Now we have USB-C, which is almost exactly the same size as Micro-USB, but *much* more durable and lasts for years on end with regular use. All the problems from Micro USB are virtually non-existent now.
What exactly are the design differences that make USB-C so much more reliable? Is it the design itself, or are there other contributing factors?
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Micro USB plugs are 6.85 mm wide by 1.8 mm tall by 5 mm deep.
USB-C plugs are 8.4 mm wide by 2.6 mm tall by 6.65 mm deep.
In other words USB plugs are bigger, over twice the volume.
This means they plug in further and have more surface area to contact with the socket giving more potential grip surface. They can also differ in how the plug is connected to its housing, you can find cables with better or worse connection quality of both types.
That doesn’t mean bigger is always better when it comes to plugs, obviously small has benefits. But for USB plugs which rely primarily on friction to stay plugged in it certainly helps. On the other hand Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector is the same height and depth as USB-C but less wide. And it’s a solid plug where as the USB-C plug is hollow because the connector is actually a second small plug inside the outer metal ring. This has the advantage of protecting the connection pins of the inner plug better but means you’ve got much thinner metal to work with. An additional point in favor of lightning is it doesn’t just use friction to hold the plug. If you look closely at a Lightning plug there are indentations on the side that allow the socket to grip the plug a bit.
All of these are examples of the tradeoffs you make in engineering, especially at small sizes. The plugs are all trying to balance the same things: size, durability, connection strength, pin protection, etc. and each one prioritizes things a little differently.
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