And if the cable connector is strenthened, the next weak link of the chain is the connector of the device, which is surely a lot more expensive than the cable.

I've broken micro-USB connector on phones that had no structural support for the connector at all. It was just hanging by the solder on the surface-mount data and power pads.

You beat me to it. I remember we decided against USB for security products because connector failure was so high for routine use. Product is fine if disposable but not long term. I'd rather see them improve what was actually the oroblem: the darned connectors.

I did a rollout of USB smart cards. The use case had an average of 5 insertions per day, 225 days per year, 5 years. That number was well below what the mfg of the smart card and the laptop mfg said the USB connection would support.

For what it's worth the only time there was token damage was when people forgot to unplug and smacked the token into a door frame, bending the token connector.

YMMV.

That's hopeful. I'm almost certainly going to go with it eventually given that USB is truly universal across computers.

When you say connectors do you mean the shields, or the termination of the wires to the connector?

I've only had the shield break twice, and that was from my dropping a laptop with a stick inserted, and from me treading on another stick.

I've had loads of cables get broken where they join the connector. Maybe I'm just too rough.

That's the reason why I wanted a laptop with a cellular modem inside the case (these are getting harder to find by the way, no idea why). I don't want anything sticking out of the machine while I'm on the move and may have to use it. 99% of the time it is on my desk and plugged in but as soon as I start moving around with it I want it to be free from protrusions because it is only a matter of time before I bump it into something and that will most likely shear the connector straight of the motherboard. So I don't think you're too rough, laptops in transit are simply fragile.

I believe it was wires to the connector that was the problem. Good call.

For me it's the cable just slightly before the connector, so I think this would sort my issues out - see this img which I just took http://imgur.com/tu0aE39

You don't need to thrust them in the port that vigorously.

Yes, blame the user. That always works!

Blaming a specific user can be entirely reasonable. Unless you know that everyone else has the same experience as you, you may just be an outlier that uses cables in ways they just can't handle. I don't know what you do with your cables, but I've never had the connector of any cable break on me. The cables themselves, especially near the connectors, and the connectors on devices: those break.