[c_man]

Its a flimsy thing anyway, feels very brittle.

So have you already broken it off / pulled it off to leave your USB port exposed 24/7 ?

EDIT: [post #15]:

Thanks for responses thus far. Drivers behind the question were:

1] Is there any adverse effect of having the port exposed 24/7 ? If not, why have a cover to begin with...

2] Many stateside Pre owners reported issues of the case or screen CRACKING when popping the USB cover back in ==> want to avoid!

[catdaemon]

No, although my pre is suffering horribly from the oreo effect the usb hatch thing seems to be very solidly built.

[Finally Pre]

fell out and now gone. 24/7 open. Would be great for a case manufacture to have a USB cover. I might pay 5 bucks for it.

[Honis]

I hardly ever hook mine up to anything via the USB cable so I keep it despite the announce I find in opening it.

[MaxLOL]

No. Mine is still on my phone.

[navinag]

Mine is just fine....Knock on wood.

[Scott1]

mine is still there, and i find it fairly easy to open every day to charge the phone at work, as long as the slider is open when i do it (and i have NO nails!)

[diggedy]

I had a samsung omnia which also had a usb cover, it felt very brittle (although less so than the pre) after a year it was still on there and I was opening it several times a day. So I figure ill give the pre`s a chance too

[5 sisters]

hardly open little cover since getting a touch stone,but it's still attached.

[boobo0]

Mine is in. Open and close every day, I'm waiting for it to just fall off some day

[ToddK]

With Touchstones scattered all over , (2 at home, 1 at work, and 1 in the truck.), I never use the thing... ;-)

Well, once or twice to side load some videos from my Centro, when I first got it, but with wire-less hot syncing with Classic and Echo, I just don't need to access it.

[alvintimothyjr]

mine broke off...I use usb all the time. I'd like an aftermarket cover.

[grappler]

yep. I broke it on launch day, tore off for good a few weeks later. Never missed it, frankly.

[robdos]

Mines still on. I connect wireless to the phone and have 2 touchstones, so I rarely use it.

[c_man]

Thanks for responses thus far. Drivers behind the question were:

1] Is there any adverse effect of having the port exposed 24/7 ? If not, why have a cover to begin with...

2] Many stateside Pre owners reported issues of the case or screen CRACKING when popping the USB cover back in ==> want to avoid!

[Sharper]

1) I've had my Pre since launch day (no exchanges, no issues) and removed the usb cover the next day. There are 4 other Pres in my immediate family and all usb covers have been removed since September. We all constantly connect our Pre usb to various labtops to move music and pictures.

2) Never tried to put the usb cover back on. No case or screen cracking.

I've been reading horror stories of build issues and multiple returns. So far with 5 Pres in the family, we've had no returns for build quality. We've been blessed & dont take it for granted.

[Honis]

Thanks for responses thus far. Drivers behind the question were:

1] Is there any adverse effect of having the port exposed 24/7 ? If not, why have a cover to begin with...

2] Many stateside Pre owners reported issues of the case or screen CRACKING when popping the USB cover back in ==> want to avoid!

Response to 1]
If you keep your phone in your pocket, dust will slowly but surely collect in the space. If you plug your USB into it daily then your connections stay pretty clean but you shove the days dust and dirt further into the plug and into the device. You may or may not get affected by this but it certainly isn't good for cooling or any mechanical parts (the slider). If you don't use the port, it will fill with dust and become hard to clean out or you'll just end up shoving the dust in a large glob into your case/port when you end up using the port. The dust may even be thick enough to prevent proper connections effectively disabling the port.

Short term you wont see anything happening. Long term you run the risk of overheating components, mucking up the slider, or disabling the USB port.

Keep in mind this is a process taking months and years and depends on the environment of your pocket and the case you use. Using a proper case, you can hide the port effectively enough that you would never see a problem in the devices lifetime.

Response to 2]
I can't even imagine how you could do this unless the screen was already defective. It's probably related to the other screen cracking issues and applying side pressure (pushing the cover on) pushes a screen flaw to failure. In which case, you'd want to apply this pressure when it was still under warranty.

[Helidos]

I never use the usb plug.. Why would you???

[dannyg417]

I never use the usb plug.. Why would you???

Because not everyone has a TS

[scaryhumor]

I baby mine. I try to keep it stock as possible (on the outside anyway) as best I can.