Say hello to the hideous new USB 3.0 cable your new smartphone or tablet will come with

BY Stefan Constantinescu

Published 5 Sep 2013

Samsung’s Galaxy Note III is going to be the first phone on the market to feature a micro USB 3.0 connector. As The Verge notes, there are many obvious benefits to the new USB standard, the most important of which being the ability to draw 900 milliamps of current when connected to a computer versus 500 milliamps today. That’s all well and good until you see the cable.

For those of you who watched my Note III live blog yesterday, you saw me asking numerous times what was up with the port on the bottom of the device. Well, that question has now been answered. What you’re looking at above is the new microUSB connector that your next phone and tablet will likely come with, assuming you buy a flagship phone.

Is it nasty? Yes, it’s hideous, and it’s going to make coming home at night and trying to plug in your phone that much more complicated of a procedure. Can you use your current microUSB charger with these new microUSB 3.0 ports? Yes, but you’re really going to have to pay attention to where you’re sticking the cable in so you don’t do any damage.

Did Apple get things right with Lightning? When they first showed it off, I thought it was the stupidest thing in the world to do, to introduce a new proprietary connection. But now I’m convinced Apple’s people saw this new microUSB connector and cried tears of blood.

If you want to see a hands-on of a microUSB 3.0 cable, turn off your headphones:

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