Who has the best AC plug?

[HeyBub]

Scores (1 to 10):

US - 1 Japan - 1 Euroland - 0 Australia - 2 Italy - 8 Denmark - 9 UK - 10

[tom]

USA! We're number one! Oh, never mind... Tom

[Jules]

Unless you step on one, as mentioned in the article. UK plugs *hurt* :-)

Mentioned it elsewhere on this ng., but I still like US plugs purely for things like phone chargers, where you can fold the power pins away and make them nice and compact. Other than that, they are a bit of a disaster...

[Larry Fishel]

I suspect a heavy dose of "British humor" was intended here...

Blame our sockets for Apple's demented charger design but not mention that we have at least four common types of 110 volt plugs (that I can think of off the top of my head)?

[dpb]

Jules wrote: ...

Well, I don't know...we seem to have a "veritable plethora" of devices operating somehow _despite_ all that disaster (whatever it may be)... :)

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[Ashton Crusher]

That article didn't even show a proper US plug. It showed an out of date non-polarized two prong receptacle. No one would install those anymore. Our standard three prong polarized receptacles and two and three prong plugs seem to work just fine.

[dpb]

As do the non-polarized "work just fine"...I've still quite a number of appliances with them in daily use. :)

[Ashton Crusher]

Yes they do. But I'd have to think long and hard about replacing one in kind if it broke. I'd much rather have an American three pronger.

[Nate Nagel]

About the only place where I could see that that would be an advantage is with a (very old) metal-cased tool or appliance. For something with a plastic or other nonconductive case, grounding offers little or no added protection to the user.

nate

(now you have me thinking about my old radio upstairs...)

[HeyBub]

Not to worry too much. The old tube-type radios (whose five tube filament voltage in series added up to 110v) are all equipped with plastic knobs and enclosed in a plastic case (console radios were in wooden cases).