Hey
Andykong, can you use a micro USB to charge the N5? Some people suggested this in the comments of my review. If so, I want to clean up my review. Thanks for your help!
First of all, micro USB 2.0 has explicit pin definition and electrical characteristic of the pins, but the physical dimension are not as straight and exhibit a fairly large tolerant scale, especially on the length of the plug-in surface of the connector. To illustrate my point, I have grabbed 5 microUSB cables at home and took the following pictures (photo by mobile phone only, please pardon the below average photo quality):
As you can see the "length" of the micro USB 2.0 are indeed varied quite a bit. The white/red and blue cable are on the long side, and the white and black cables are on the short side. I have tried my best to align these cable from long to short order.
On top of the length issue, there are two "hooks" on the plug-in surface, these are the security pin that lock the cable into the USB port. If you compare the "hook" of the two black cables, it is obvious that one is slightly more high profile then the other, meaning the locking capability of these cables will vary.
When I insert the longer red/white or blue cable into N5, this is what happened:
The length of the pin has build up a small gap between the cable and the N5 USB3.0 port. The N5 is charging (I took 10 photos consecutively in order to capture the blinking LED, so the image are kind of blurred slightly) and the connection is tight and secured.
When I insert the white and black cable beside the blue cable into N5, this is what happened:
The cable is now closely pushed into the N5 USB3.0 port. The N5 is charging and the connection is tight and secured.
When I plug the last cable into N5, I failed to get a secured connection, the cable can't hold in the USB3.0 port, and the N5 is getting charged for a few seconds and then drop off from charging. I am not sure whether this is because the plug in surface is slightly shorter (by a very small margin only), or the security pin is slightly recessed when compare to other cables.
So the fact is, N5 might have a problem to work with some micro USB2.0 cable, and I suggest you take a closer look at the length of the plug-in area and the condition of the security pin when you bought your next cable.