- Displayport, obviously.
- HDMI, because that might be useful in some cases.
- MHL Alternate Mode for USB 3.1, which is not-quite-HDMI.
- USB itself, like the external mini video cards created by DisplayLink
- PCI-E, as the monitor could contain any regular video card. Unlikely, but technically possible.
Is the monitor going to work when plugged into your laptop? What about your phone? Will it charge either of those? I'm not sure how this has managed to gone this horribly wrong, but somehow "supports usb-c" has become completely meaningless. Oh, and it can also support analog audio as well!
And if anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, please tell me which devices do and which do not work with this "usb-c to vga" adapter, because to me it is literally impossible to tell: http://www.belkin.com/uk/p/P-F2CU037/
USB-C solves problems that nobody actually had, and in doing so creates a bunch of new ones that are expensive and difficult to solve for the end user. It isn’t quite as dumb as 801.11ad docking, but it’s close.
Once do-it-all chipsets get cheaper, all ports will do everything a user expects of them.
Type-C isn't great TODAY and that's because many implementations of Type-C are first generation.
Shitting on 1st generation technology implementations and saying it's a technology problem rather than an implementation problem isn't helping.
When the first USB rolled out I don't remember any issues like this. The big problem with previous tech was lack of support (like only having one usb-2 port and the rest being usb-1.1) and expensive cables (we do have those with USB-C). These[1] were fairly ubiquitous for a good 10 years and I don't remember any issues.
I feel like there could have been better consumer-facing design--like color bands to mark support on cables and ports (just like USB-2 was blue and USB-3 were red). They would designate if a cable or port would support Thunderbolt, USB-3, HDMI, DisplayPort, or high power. Resistors have been doing it for almost 100 years and this version would be much simpler. Or like PCI-E have like a lane system where more lanes support higher level features.
But this isn't only a branding problem with incompatible cables. You just can't have a USB-C hub with this standard. From my (possibly flawed) understanding, because USB-C switches modes to carry something like DisplayPort, for example, you can't also carry a USB-C signal at the same time, so you can't split USB-C (without one of the ports shutting off while in that mode). Maybe you could if you hub didn't support those exclusive modes? I haven't seen any actual USB-C hubs for sale (that give you more USB-C ports on the other side).
[1] https://images10.newegg.com/ProductImageCompressAll300/12-20...
A USB-C connector has one USB 2.0 pair, four high-speed differential pairs, and two sideband wires. For USB 2.0 you need only the USB 2.0 pair, for USB 3.1 you need the USB 2.0 pair and two of the high-speed differential pairs.
For DisplayPort, you need two or four of the differential pairs, plus the two sideband wires. If you're using two of the differential pairs for DisplayPort, you can use the full USB 3.1 at the same time; if you're using four of the differential pairs for DisplayPort, you still have USB 2.0 left.
The same applies to other alternate modes. As long as they need at most two of the differential pairs, you have USB 3.1, otherwise you have USB 2.0. And power delivery has its own set of wires, so it's also always available.
(The exception is the 3.5mm plug adapter alternate mode, where everything except analog audio and slow charging is unavailable.)
I'm not sure how all those one-cable USB-C docking stations work then, as they carry video and audio one direction (to the dock and then out to the screen), and multiple USB devices and power the other direction (from the wall and connected peripherals and through the dock). If it truly couldn't do multiple things at once, none of these docking stations would work with a single cable, and they do.
This post[1] says > What the problems is - how the USB-C lines within a cable are used is determined at plug-in time, depending on what you plug in downstream of the port. For example, you can't have full speed USB 3.1 and full video at the same time. So the USB-C makes a choice for you. If you plug in both a high-res monitior and USB 3, then you can't have both at once.
Still not technically clear to me. It does sound like with just a hub your transfer speed will drop when using a hub and driving a monitor. Maybe the limitation I'm thinking of is if USB-C is carrying something like Thunderbolt, you can't carry a second Thunderbolt signal? Because USB-C splitting compromises so much, they're so rare in the market?
I have heard the order in which you plug in USB-C will tell it which direction to charge (which gives credence to things being determined at plug-in time). For example, plugging the cable into your phone then plugging it into a computer will make the phone charge the computer instead of vice versa. When I heard that they were speaking about a specific phone and laptop, so it wasn't theoretical, but I'm having a hard time corroborating this. This [2] article says the direction power flows is a computer setting. What's scary is there's a lot of articles warning you not to use your USB-C laptop charger to charge your phone because it could fry it.
[1] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/206365/why-are-the...
[2] https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/charging-via-usb-c/
Even if the signals of some ports are electrically compatible, I try to use different shapes of connector for them if they are not logically compatible (the functions are fixed, not swappable). Because you can be sure nobody will always look at icons which are faint, small, can only be seen correctly under a certain angle and light, etc. Supposing you even know which icon means what. Supposing you can even have a sight of the icon and port, that it is hidden behind something and you have to try if it fits blindly.
You do not want to be called every other day because "it doesn't work anymore" because someone connected the wrong device to the wrong port :-). So for some serial ports with incompatible functions, you do not put all DB-9 ports, you put 1 DB-9, 1 round DIN, 1 rectangular (and hope they do not manage to fit the rectangular connector in the DB-9), 1 DB-25... It looks messy, shambolic? Yes it does. Definitely. But it is efficient because it is idiot-proof. And I mean a very large definition of 'idiot' which encompasses about everyone.
I can tell you about the number of times I 'plug' a USB cable into a DisplayPort or the power cable into the telephone plug because they sit in the same area and have sort of compatible shapes... I generally quickly notice because it does not fit well, but just imagine the nightmare if they were truly the same physical connectors...
I think the point of USB-C is that the same port can support both functions, and so you don't have to care into which port you actually plug-in the cable. My proposal was just for when you were buying a new device, to make sure it supported the same technology as your existing devices - only then you would compare the icons.
Is it possible to purchase USB-C cables that work for everything? Or are (some of) the different supported protocols incompatible?
I would much rather have 4 USB-C ports than even 8 ports that all do one thing only. It's like having $40 cash instead of 8x $10 gift certificates (of which perhaps only one you might want to use).
It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that USB-C/TB3 has been such a disaster and even mechanically a disappointment.
But it's never actually worked, I ended up RMAing the docking station. Since the laptop itself can only support one display, I can't have dual monitors. So now I have a 43" 4K monitor, a USB hub and a power connector that I need to plug in/out all the time. And Win10 still gets confused about DPIs and scaling and stuff.
On my ancient-but-still-kicking Dell Precision, at least the docking station actually works and you can simply click in and out in three seconds.
For me, I'm enjoying the power of the USB-c/Thunderbolt connector on my Dell XPS. I use a docking station, which I'm sending 4k video and audio out to while receiving video, mouse, ethernet and power over the same cable. One cable docking is amazing, and really shows off the possibilities of the technology (although in this case I'm pretty sure it's Thunderbolt doing the heavy lifting).
But even my CPU could manage to have 8 lanes feeding a GPU and 8 lanes feeding a switch for the thunderbolt ports, something that provides enough bandwidth for the vast majority of use cases.
... But they have already disappeared. The 13" Macbook Pro that I'm talking about just has those two USB-C ports and none of the others. If you are plugged in for power you just have one port.
My old 10.1" has:
* 1 power connector
* 1 ethernet connector
* 1 VGA connector
* 3 USB ports
* 2 audio jacks
* 1 memory card slot
* 1 mysterious connector
This is old, but still gold
1. Missing protocols in the IP layer can be solved by software. If your CPU is missing a thunderbolt chipset, a driver update will not help you.
2. The physical layer is not actually the same, some USB-C cables don't have all the necessary pins for power charge or high speed data.
My Switch is another great example. It won't even charge with some of my adapters, and I had to get a C -> HDMI splitter that was designed specifically for the Switch, despite the fact that Nintendo isn't even using any proprietary protocols (just less common ones).
Also in the case of wifi and bluetooth compatibility issues have a chance to be resolved in software on your end. In the case of USB the list of supported protocols is the property of the hardware interface and the options to resolve these issues are limited.
In the end if you buy a device that has an "USB" port the specification that it has "USB-C" is meaningless, you want to know the exact list of hardware protocols that the port supports.
Sure you can - it's gotten better in recent years, but it used to be that a lot of devices didn't support WPA2. This was (typically at least) not fixed in software.
Turns out that it was a mini-DisplayPort version of the Cinema Display, and that even though it worked fine with the built-in Thunderbolt 2 port, it didn't with the one in the adaptor. She ended up trading her Cinema Display with somebody who had the Thunderbolt version and an old laptop, because at the time that was easier than finding an mDP->USB-C adaptor.
"COMPATIBILITY
MacBook Google Chromebook Pixel MacBook Pro (2016) Dell XPS 13”
So those devices work and everything else is a bonus, I guess.
And yet, very profitable for the companies rolling it out so poorly, who can charge more for products featuring the new ports and nickel-and-dime us with expensive adapters, dongles, and cables to replace the perfectly functional USB-A ecosystem.
It's quite a clever trick they've managed to pull on their customers -- convincing us all our problems can be hand-waved away with a single, forceful utterance of "it's the future", thus relegating any criticism to "whining and moaning" about first-world problems.
That even Apple can't manage to simplify the mess within its own laptop line, let alone tablets and phones, is indicative of how poorly thought out this whole idea was from the start. They seem to have a device for just about every combination of incompatibility that is possible.
The goal was noble:
- provide enough power to charge an external device and ditch the bulky power supply and second cable
- support extremely high-speed devices like monitors and SSDs
- standardize the connector with a slimmer, symmetric design
So far it's been an utter failure of execution.
Different strokes. Being able to charge on either side is one of the biggest usability wins of the new MBP to me.
Go figure.
FWIW a number of studio headphones support plugging in a cable to either can rather than restricting you to just the left one, if you want to go that route. V-moda sells a few pairs like this and denotes the feature as "dual inputs".
This was a total amateur mistake by Apple.
> This whole thing is expensive, unnecessary, user-unfriendly and confusing (to the average user).
Please don't assume to speak for everyone. Being able to charge from any port from either side is very convenient, modern, and I love it.
This was the promise of usb-c - at least, that's what many of us thought was the promise. Now we're finding out reality isn't quite up to it. And it's far worse for people who, naturally, assume if the plug fits, it'll work.
Maybe that ideal is impossible, or financially prohibitive. Usb-c implies it isn't, though.
It works exactly like that on modern Macs - whatever you plug into whichever USB-C port will work. Worst case scenario is that your ultra-high-speed TB3 RAID array will work ever so slightly on the left hand side ports, but it'll still work and it'll still be plenty fast.
And I understand that USB-C ports on other highend laptops are the same? They support TB3, HDMI, DP and other alternate modes so this will quickly become a moot point, just like having to differentiate between USB 1.1 and USB2.0 ports?
I actually see this as a feature. What would be insane if only one special port supported power. That would just be confusing.
There is actually a convenient color code, at least on thinkpads, where black means usb2, yellow means alwayson and blue means usb3.
Never mind that with the older plugs, the cables were basically passive. But now there has to be special resistors in them to signal what kind of power delivery they can handle, and oh so many companies get it wrong. Because there is also a special resistor that need to be used if you have a A to C cable, that overrules all the others.
It is frankly a fire hazard waiting to happen.
At best you can say you won't damage equipment in the process of discovering the quirks of USB-C. Except, of course, for the cheap not-up-to-spec cables that might cause damage.
IMHO, regulatory bodies should be taking a hard look at multi-use cords over a certain power level. It’s literally a matter of time before people die as a result of some fake Amazon cable.
Now, presumably the designer of this dongle had some reason to limit the power output. Perhaps the heat dissipation is not enough (the dongle gets pretty hot even when using it just for USB and HDMI). What if some other manufacturer is not so careful and allows negotiating more power through a similar device?
I think that's the point. With off-the-shelf aftermarket parts, it's not always clear if you're getting something that can provide clean pass-through power or not. Or even if that's something you should be worried about.
The 13" MBP have non-equal USB-C ports, if true, is totally Apple's fault. I'm actually surprised at why nobody have sued Apple for misguiding their customers (I don't think Apple disclosed that not all ports on 13" MBP has all the capabilities they bragged about).
Plenty of us complained about it. Some even saw it as a reason to avoid Apple.
> The alternative is like, what, we settle all the capabilities this port can have, and say that's it, we cannot add new capabilities to this port to confuse consumers, we must use a new port for new capabilities?
Yes. Different ports should look different.
Be careful what you wish for. New capabilities are added to ports all the time. If that's the case, we'll have a new port every year.
Isn't it Intel's fault given the limited number of PCIe lanes on their dual core CPUs?
> I don't think Apple disclosed that not all ports on 13" MBP has all the capabilities they bragged about
It's noted here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207256
Search "macbook thunderbolt pci" on Google? It's nowhere in sight by page 3...
Search "thunderbolt pci" on support.apple.com? It's result 8, after info about connecting TB displays, network adapters, cables, and so on.
Yes it's there, but let's not pretend Apple is going out of their way to note it.
With "macbook pro 13" thunderbolt speed" it's the very first result (for me at least)
In any case, no, they aren't going out of their way, nor should they IMO. I think that would confuse many more people than the amount that are looking specifically to use > 2 full-bandwidth Thunderbolt connections at once on a dual core machine. I'd wager that > 95% are going to be happy they have two extra 10Gbps USB and charge ports.
Actually on that official tech specs page Apple bluntly claimed that:
Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports with support for:
Charging
DisplayPort
Thunderbolt (up to 40 Gbps)
USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps)
For cables, you can whittle it down to two things. Bandwidth, and whether it supports 3 amps or 5 amps. Supported modes is a function of signal bandwidth. 5 amp can be a little power icon, and bandwidth only needs about 3-4 options. So most cables would only have a bandwidth rating.
For ports I agree that it's much too complicated.
Depending on cable configuration, pinout, wall plate and structured wiring system, that 8P8C might be usable (or not) for multiple different types of data networking, from the assorted ethernet speeds to E1 to token ring, or for a serial console, or delivering power and audio to a remote speaker, or hdmi-over-utp, or even -48V telephony, and let's not even get started on the only-subtly-different but actually incompatible RJ45S connector, or people sticking RJ11 plugs in 8P8C ports.
And yet the world has coped with this proliferation.
/s
I agree, MIDI is a bit shit.
Twist-lock appears to be a USA-specific thing.
Take a given cable and there's a number of dimensions you need to considered:
- Supported power standards (none, USB, various other wattages and standards)
- Supported bandwidth. I think some don't even support data transfer (which might include the USB-C cable that comes with the Apple Macbook charger)
- Supported modes (USB, Thunderbolt, DisplayPort?)
There's no colour scheme that can adequately handle all the possible variations.
But there are other problems: it makes no sense to have all 4 ports on a 15" Macbook Pro (for example) support power. You only need one port to charge with. I think I read that not all the ports on the 13" Macbook Pro are the same (in terms of capabilities).
This is just strikes me as a (hollow) victory for principle ("one port/cable to rule them all") over pragmatism. This always reminds me of the quote: a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.
This whole thing is expensive, unnecessary, user-unfriendly and confusing (to the average user).