It took me 5 solid minutes to get the receiver to hold still long enough for this picture

It’s incredible, despite the many, many benefits of Dexcom’s G4, that the build quality of the receiver is so poor.

What you’re looking at is the slide cover for the USB port on the side of the G4 receiver. I suppose the idea is that you would want to keep the port covered until it’s being used – a philosophy opposite that of most cell phones. While I’m not necessarily for or against this design, I wish Dexcom would have a stronger commitment to its design with some stronger plastic.

See the little metal bit in the slide? That’s not supposed to be visible. There’s supposed to be a bit of plastic covering the metal slide-y bit across the entire length of the side. You can see on the left that there’s still a little plastic left, and that’s the only thing keeping the slide in place. I’m going to see how much longer it lasts but at this point I know I’m on borrowed time.

I hope this is just the cost of being an early adopter and future shipments get a tougher shell. I know some of you are about to tell me about Tally Gear, but I value my pocket space and I haven’t seen any alternatives that don’t require external attachments.

I suppose this is a top-of-the-line first world problem given the reality of the situation, but it’s still worth noting that the receiver deserved better. As the only means of data output, and the constant source of button pressing, I hope this can get fixed sooner rather than later. Besides, it’s not like the G5 technology will get approved in the States any time soon.