Many were dismayed when they found out that the Dell Streak didn’t use the now-standard mini-USB or micro-USB ports seen on many phones for data synchronization and charging. It was believed that this was a proprietary connection type made by Dell, but it’s actually a PDMI port- not standard but it’s not something you’ll only find on Dell’s products.
Still, one hacker – John from Linux Slate – wasn’t going to be locked into a connector type that he couldn’t easily buy a cable for from third parties. He instead opted to rip the device open and solder a mini-USB socket onto the board within the cable clip. Pretty cool, but I’m not sure it’d be worth the trouble unless you have other reasons for wanting to do this (such as using car chargers). Otherwise, just cough up another $20 to Dell for a replacement cable and call it a day.
[via Engadget]