[qurren]

Fully ruggedized is in fact what I want and what I consider truly consumer grade.

> which is not something you're going to get on affordable consumer devices

Not true. 1990s connectors hardly ever broke for me. They were all super rugged. I've dropped several-kilogram objects onto VGA connectors, SCSI connectors, and DC barrel jacks and nothing ever happened.

[vel0city]

I've destroyed lots of barrel jacks over the years. I wouldn't normally consider them that rugged.

[mjevans]

I buy the DC barrel jacks, those I've had inordinate problems on the inside of devices as they wear out but never on the power plug itself.

VGA connectors? I've bent the shield on more than one VGA or DVI cable, and it's a nightmare to get a pin straight enough if you happen to bend one... but possible sometimes.

[Aurornis]

> Fully ruggedized is in fact what I want and what I consider truly consumer grade.

I put fully ruggedized connectors on several shipping products. You would not like the cost nor space requirements.

> I've dropped several-kilogram objects onto VGA connectors, SCSI connectors, and DC barrel jacks and nothing ever happened.

VGA and SCSI connectors are rarely exposed like a phone connector and they're in a completely different class anyway. Nobody wants a phone with a giant SCSI size connector on the bottom.

I hate to say it, but the fact that you have this many anecdotes of dropping "several-kilogram objects" on to connectors is a clue that you're an outlier in how hard you treat connectors, if breaking 50 USB connectors a year wasn't already an indicator.

Expecting consumer connectors to stand up to this outlier level of abuse is unrealistic.

[qu4z-2]

I had the physical DC barrel jack port fall out the back of a monitor the other day. Granted that's not the connector per se.