Then you buy a thunderbolt dock, and your mouse and keyboard stutter because of mutually incompatible bugs between the bios, the thunderbolt chipset and the USB chipset.
Re:USB4 v2 is also 120 Gbps
by altairprime on Saturday September 03, 2022 @12:31PM
(#32703479)
Implementation defects exist in USB, HDMI, Thunderbolt, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and exist in all protocols.
Thunderbolt considerably reduces the defect surface for certified implementations when compared to USB and HDMI, by reducing the number of optionals for cables and implementors to zero.
That does not imply zero defects in use. It implies fewer defects in use. And invisibly-damaged cables are still the bane of all of us.
Pretty much every combination of laptop and thunderbolt dock I've tried in the last 6 years has been a mediocre, buggy experience. I've personally tried 4 docks across 3 different laptops.
I got a 2nd work laptop just so that one can sit permanently docked, never unplugged or power cycled. Every once in a while I have to get docker running on it, which is also a miserable experience, but that's not related to thunderbolt!
Thunderbolt wants to appeal to "quality at a premium" and does not offer optional capabilities. This is why you can buy any Thunderbolt cable and use any Thunderbolt device — and why cheap devices decline to certify for Thunderbolt.