This page explains why the Spectre x2 (and I thought the x360 too? but maybe not) is locked to a proprietary charger, while the Elite x2 isn't https://www.tapatalk.com/topic/69523-34990
I have a phone with a USB-C port, but when it came to buying a laptop, ended up skipping the USB-C port. For the same specs, a laptop with USB-C 3.1+Power Delivery is almost twice the price. Acer's budget line include USB-C, but not necessarily USB 3.1 or power delivery (so basically it's just a more cumbersome usb 3.0).
Even for older Android devices like my Nexus 9, or wireless headphones, I'm now only buying USB-C wall adapters and using them with USB-C to Micro USB cables (like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WJSPW8Q). If you have an older wall charger that dies consider spending a few extra bucks and moving to USB-C, it'll futureproof your purchase.
USB-C has so many compatibility problems (and safety issues) I don't legitimately believe we buy today will be futureproof. Buying anything USB-C today is a minefield. At the very least you'll want to check that Google engineer's spreadsheet but even that only assures safety, not future proofness.
I don't think we'll see the USB-C connector change again soon, but everything else about the standard seems somewhat in flux. There's already competing standards for fast charging over USB-C. Once Apple hits the market with a USB-C iPhone, that's going to tip the bucket over.
That article doesn't really mean anything. It's just a test of some laptops and their adapters, which is a small subset of the world of charged/charging devices.
There are at least 10 different official USB power specs, the latest being from last year, called "USB Power Delivery revision 2.0 version 1.2". Each spec may have multiple revisions, and versions of revisions, and each revision version may have up to 6 power profiles. There are more unofficial specs that are hacked by vendors. Fast charging has even more variations and incompatibilities. And then some ports get some other standard tacked onto it, which may have their own incompatible power spec.
We keep getting new specs and new devices with new uses. Laptop vendors can only push out new hardware supporting new specs after a lot of R&D, and at considerable new cost. Because of this, in order to support some new feature without as much time and money spent making it compatible, it is vendor locked so it doesn't catch on fire. We saw the same thing with wifi.
So are things getting better? Yes, we finally have support for enough of the baseline standard so at least most new things will charge now. But will they all continue to work compatibly in the future? Probably not as long as vendors continue to make their own power adapters.
Everything you just said applies to normal power adapters (USB or not) the issue is that USB-C is newer so less market saturation of quality, cheap, goods.
It'll happen - until then go with already proven products in the market.
> One trend I will highlight is that more cables are getting USB-IF certified compliant. In fact, I see a number of cables on Amazon that not only claim to be USB-IF certified, they list the TID (Test Identifier) assigned by USB-IF for the cable in the product description.
Also, as for
> There's already competing standards for fast charging over USB-C.
> * Type-C devices MUST detect 1.5A and 3.0A chargers per the Type-C resistor standard and it must detect changes in the advertisement.
> * Type-C devices also supporting USB host mode are STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to support Power Delivery for data and power role swapping.
> * Type-C devices SHOULD support Power Delivery for high-voltage charging and support for Alternate Modes such as display out.
> * Type-C devices are STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to not support proprietary charging methods that modify Vbus voltage beyond default levels, or alter sink/source roles as such may result in interoperability issues with the chargers or devices that support the standard USB Power Delivery methods. While this is called out as "STRONGLY RECOMMENDED", in future Android versions we might REQUIRE all type-C devices to support full interoperability with standard type-C chargers.
Were there issues early on? Yes. Will there be many issues going forward? I don't think so.
I've been pretty happy with an Anker 60W for charging my 15" MBP; it doesn't charge as fast as the stock charger, but it's good enough and it's $40 shipped: amazon.com/Anker-Premium-Charger-PowerPort-Delivery/dp/B01D8C6ULO
Does charging a modern LiPo battery slowly result in extended battery life?
I've thought it would be good if there was a charge-mode selector of some description for when your laptop is low but you know you won't need a full charged battery until tomorrow. Or if you could tell the battery to stop charging at a particular capacity, say by intentionally shifting the 0% and 100% battery levels.
The MacBook already charges slowly by LiPo standards, I'm guessing they picked a charge rate beyond which slowing down further was giving deminishing returns. You'd definitely get more longevity out of it by shifting the 0 and 100% points though. I'm just not sure Apple would ever let you for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is they do want the batteries to degrade and encourage upgrades that way.
ThinkPads allow you to set the charging limits, e.g. "Charge up to 90% but don't start charging if above 80%". Works on Linux, too (e.g. using tlp, which also has a "fully charge it this one time" command when you need it)
I didn't specifically buy a new power bank for my new MBP, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out my generic power bank for the mobile phone can actually charge the battery of my MacBook when the MacBook is not being used (5 percent in 30 minutes). When you are using, it says battery not charging though.
Not even close. Tons of peripherals are still being actively manufactured in older usb interfaces. It was pretty ironic to be buying futuristic Bluetooth headphones with old usb ports.
I recently compiled all my usb devices and the result is depressing:
If I had to guess, I'd say that Apple and Google have the leadership and financial cushion to be more forward looking than all the PC manufacturers, who are in most competitive markets with lower margins.
That doesn't mean it's OK, but that's my guess as to why you see the lag in quality.
We can debate why people pay the "Apple tax" (ignorance, fashion, the fact that they once made very good hardware), but it certainly isn't because they have the best track record for working with third party peripherals like chargers.
Have you ever tried to charge an Apple phone or tablet with a charger for a non Apple phone?
I wouldn't say "fine." It works, but it's slow. The original USB standard only provided for half an amp of power, much less than modern phones and tablets need. There's a global standard for high-power USB charging, and another standard used only by Apple, so Apple devices are stuck with the default 0.5 amp when using a standard charger, and vice versa.
> it certainly isn't because they have the best track record for working with third party peripherals like chargers
No, but it is that their engineers seem to just consistently get things right. I doubt they cared about third party chargers at all. I would imagine they maybe even never tested with third party chargers.
But they engineered the system so well that they just worked anyway.
I was pretty peeved about losing Magsafe in the newest MBP, but being able to charge via any USB port has been amazing.
Even using an iPad charger is good enough for travel a lot of the time. Sure it'll still discharge while in use, but it effectively doubles the battery life of my MBP when its plugged into it, and I don't have to carry another charger with me.
Also cables are dirt cheap, and I don't have to worry about anything fraying and having to spend $88 for a replacement.
An issue I've had with my Macbook is that after charging from a non-Apple USB-C power source, the battery life on the system drops through the floor, especially when the system is in sleep state.
Before charging with a non-Apple USB-C source? Starting with a full battery, the system can sleep for at least a week without running the battery completely down.
After charging with a non-Apple USB-C source? Starting with a full battery, the system makes it for 1-2 days sleeping before the battery is totally discharged.
I can restore this to the original state with a PRAM + SMC reset, but that's a pretty big annoyance. And I've tested with a completely clean system without any 3rd party software at all in order to validate this pattern. Something is definitely screwy about charging a Macbook with a non-OEM USB-C power source.
What brand is your USB-C power source? I've been using a Dell USB-C docking station for a few months now and I don't have this problem with my new Macbook.
Maybe Apple has an update to the firmware and/or software which resolves that issue.
In my opinion, tolerable behavior includes:
* Not charging at all (should indicate incompatible or disconnected cable)
* Charging (at any speed) only while off/asleep.
* Charging, but in some slow mode.
* Charging "quickly".
Any other behavior sounds like at minimum a software defect, and at worst a non-correctable hardware defect.
It is much smaller than the Apple dongle and allows you to carry just the Macbook charger and a standard Micro USB cable to charge older cellphones and the kindle.
I did have one die on me after about a year of abuse and immediately repurchased it. Hopefully it will last long enough for me to upgrade my phone/kindle/smart-card-reader. Anker batteries also support USB C and happily charge the Macbook, they also make nice braided cables.
Unfortunately that specific one has a proprietary connector on one end but probably the next version will be fully standard. One tiny charger, one high quality cable, for all your devices. We're almost there.
My phone is usb c. My laptop is usb c. GoPro is usb c. It's slowly happening, if only Apple would ditch lightning but that's not going to happen. Hell I'll cheer if they adopt QI because it will spread like wild fire.
An upward-pointed male Lightning connector can be used directly as a freestanding charging dock to "hold up" devices, with no other support, because it's just a piece of solid metal. Docks are important! (At least, in Apple's opinion. Probably in large part due to their stores, where people are constantly picking devices up and then plopping them back, roughly, onto their docks.)
Nah, the USB-C male connector is a hollow sheath of aluminum, and there's no rule stopping anyone from making that sheath as thin and non-load-bearing as possible. And while there are minimum shear force requirements for the female end of the connector (and thus the reinforcement of the housing around said connector), there's no guideline in the USB-C spec about how much torque the device itself needs to be able to sustain when held up by the connector. (So the USB-C slot in your Android phone might do okay at holding onto a USB-C "plug dock", but over the long term, that may gradually pull the housing itself out of your phone, or bend your phone, or poke a hole in the battery inside, etc.)
Meanwhile, the Lightning+MFI specs put required tolerances on all of these factors. It's not just about the connector; it's about what having the connector guarantees about the device. That's why Apple will never replace Lightning: it's there to indicate that a device or cable or dock compliant with it won't wear out any other device or cable or dock compliant with it.
And the interesting thing is, the design of the connectors forces the hand of at least the knock-off cable manufacturers, into obeying those tolerances. Even if you don't bother to get an MFI license, just making your Lightning cable's male end fit female Lightning connectors means making it structurally-sound—since the male connector is just made out of thick aluminum, and aluminum is already the cheapest metal you can get, and it also needs to serve as a grounding pin as well so you can't just replace it with e.g. plastic. So a bad Lightning cable is never going to break your phone physically.
Will a bad Lightning cable be able to break your phone electrically? Probably not; AFAIK, the the device-side board around the female connector is required, according to MFI, to detect the negotiated-current signal using an optoisolator before switching on the current path to the rest of the device. So you actually can't make a "Lightning killer" cable the way you can make a "USB killer" cable.
What's the expected (specs, and real life) lifespan of these connectors? (How many typical connection/disconnection pairs?) I know that was an issue with earlier generation USB connectors, but I'm skeptical that C has achieved desired robustness.
I'm not talking about abuse, just expected use. Though if particular vulnerabilities to abuse or whatnot are showing up, that would be of concern.
> I know that was an issue with earlier generation USB connectors
Standard big USB plugs are supposed to have a design life of 1,500 plugging cycles - though I've never had one die, and never heard of any die.
Mini-USB are designed for 5,000 cycles, Micro-USB have a design life of 10,000. Ditto, only ever breaks if you try to bend and snap it off deliberately.
USB-C is also supposed to be able to last 10,000 cycles (which ought to be enough as a minimum spec - plugging in thrice a day for a decade).
> Ditto, only ever breaks if you try to bend and snap it off deliberately.
No way. I've had many Micro-USB cables die because the connector gets bent. Trying to plug in devices in the dark or without being able to tell which way the cable is facing, not to mention the tension put on the connector when your device is in a bag or something, means the design is not very reliable in general.
My USB-C cables feel much sturdier, but we'll see.
I have had so many Micro-USB cables get worse and worse at keeping a connection, until I'm reduced to trying to prop the phone up in a specific way to charge. I suspect the "10,000 cycles" thing is overrated.
Out of those, Micro-USB is the only one I've seen fail and I've never even heard of the other types failing. Usually, the locking pins bend and it will no longer hold securely. Meanwhile flash drives with USB A plugs last indefinitely.
USB-A is defined for 1500 plug cycles, USB-C like micro USB-B for 10 000. The pins of the cable have to press on the pins of the plug, so the pins of the cable wear out instead of the ones of the plug (sorry if this is a bad description, I am not a native english speaker). Replacing a cable is much cheaper than replacing a device/repairing a plug.
So, they are engineers to place more wear on the cable (i.e. male plug) than the port (socket)? Great.
I wonder whether (well, suspect, I guess, that) crap cables can negatively affect this, e.g. through inferior materials and manufacture / specifications adherence producing more friction. (Anyway, I do my best to ascertain what are quality cables and then, if necessary, pay a bit more for them.)
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 93.0 ms ] threadI have a phone with a USB-C port, but when it came to buying a laptop, ended up skipping the USB-C port. For the same specs, a laptop with USB-C 3.1+Power Delivery is almost twice the price. Acer's budget line include USB-C, but not necessarily USB 3.1 or power delivery (so basically it's just a more cumbersome usb 3.0).
I don't think we'll see the USB-C connector change again soon, but everything else about the standard seems somewhat in flux. There's already competing standards for fast charging over USB-C. Once Apple hits the market with a USB-C iPhone, that's going to tip the bucket over.
See chart: http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2017/02/usbcchar...
There are at least 10 different official USB power specs, the latest being from last year, called "USB Power Delivery revision 2.0 version 1.2". Each spec may have multiple revisions, and versions of revisions, and each revision version may have up to 6 power profiles. There are more unofficial specs that are hacked by vendors. Fast charging has even more variations and incompatibilities. And then some ports get some other standard tacked onto it, which may have their own incompatible power spec.
We keep getting new specs and new devices with new uses. Laptop vendors can only push out new hardware supporting new specs after a lot of R&D, and at considerable new cost. Because of this, in order to support some new feature without as much time and money spent making it compatible, it is vendor locked so it doesn't catch on fire. We saw the same thing with wifi.
So are things getting better? Yes, we finally have support for enough of the baseline standard so at least most new things will charge now. But will they all continue to work compatibly in the future? Probably not as long as vendors continue to make their own power adapters.
Everything you just said applies to normal power adapters (USB or not) the issue is that USB-C is newer so less market saturation of quality, cheap, goods.
It'll happen - until then go with already proven products in the market.
From https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/LQ5df94bERb:
> One trend I will highlight is that more cables are getting USB-IF certified compliant. In fact, I see a number of cables on Amazon that not only claim to be USB-IF certified, they list the TID (Test Identifier) assigned by USB-IF for the cable in the product description.
Also, as for
> There's already competing standards for fast charging over USB-C.
Not really. There are proprietary options, yes, but USB Power Delivery is THE standard. Google even strongly recommends OEMs not implement anything besides Power Delivery (https://source.android.com/compatibility/android-cdd#7_7_usb):
> * Type-C devices MUST detect 1.5A and 3.0A chargers per the Type-C resistor standard and it must detect changes in the advertisement.
> * Type-C devices also supporting USB host mode are STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to support Power Delivery for data and power role swapping.
> * Type-C devices SHOULD support Power Delivery for high-voltage charging and support for Alternate Modes such as display out.
> * Type-C devices are STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to not support proprietary charging methods that modify Vbus voltage beyond default levels, or alter sink/source roles as such may result in interoperability issues with the chargers or devices that support the standard USB Power Delivery methods. While this is called out as "STRONGLY RECOMMENDED", in future Android versions we might REQUIRE all type-C devices to support full interoperability with standard type-C chargers.
Were there issues early on? Yes. Will there be many issues going forward? I don't think so.
I've thought it would be good if there was a charge-mode selector of some description for when your laptop is low but you know you won't need a full charged battery until tomorrow. Or if you could tell the battery to stop charging at a particular capacity, say by intentionally shifting the 0% and 100% battery levels.
I recently compiled all my usb devices and the result is depressing:
https://github.com/paradite/my-usb-life/blob/master/README.m...
This is why people pay the Apple tax (although Google does just as well). Why are the other manufacturers so incompetent?
(This was last year's tests though, this year's look better across all manufacturers).
That doesn't mean it's OK, but that's my guess as to why you see the lag in quality.
Have you ever tried to charge an Apple phone or tablet with a charger for a non Apple phone?
No, but it is that their engineers seem to just consistently get things right. I doubt they cared about third party chargers at all. I would imagine they maybe even never tested with third party chargers.
But they engineered the system so well that they just worked anyway.
What track record? USB-C is their first officially supported open charging standard.
Maybe in another 5, 10 years.
Even using an iPad charger is good enough for travel a lot of the time. Sure it'll still discharge while in use, but it effectively doubles the battery life of my MBP when its plugged into it, and I don't have to carry another charger with me.
Also cables are dirt cheap, and I don't have to worry about anything fraying and having to spend $88 for a replacement.
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-p...
Before charging with a non-Apple USB-C source? Starting with a full battery, the system can sleep for at least a week without running the battery completely down.
After charging with a non-Apple USB-C source? Starting with a full battery, the system makes it for 1-2 days sleeping before the battery is totally discharged.
I can restore this to the original state with a PRAM + SMC reset, but that's a pretty big annoyance. And I've tested with a completely clean system without any 3rd party software at all in order to validate this pattern. Something is definitely screwy about charging a Macbook with a non-OEM USB-C power source.
In my opinion, tolerable behavior includes:
Any other behavior sounds like at minimum a software defect, and at worst a non-correctable hardware defect.It is much smaller than the Apple dongle and allows you to carry just the Macbook charger and a standard Micro USB cable to charge older cellphones and the kindle.
I did have one die on me after about a year of abuse and immediately repurchased it. Hopefully it will last long enough for me to upgrade my phone/kindle/smart-card-reader. Anker batteries also support USB C and happily charge the Macbook, they also make nice braided cables.
Next up would be next-gen tiny chargers like this (65W): http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/2/10/14581300/fi...
Unfortunately that specific one has a proprietary connector on one end but probably the next version will be fully standard. One tiny charger, one high quality cable, for all your devices. We're almost there.
Meanwhile, the Lightning+MFI specs put required tolerances on all of these factors. It's not just about the connector; it's about what having the connector guarantees about the device. That's why Apple will never replace Lightning: it's there to indicate that a device or cable or dock compliant with it won't wear out any other device or cable or dock compliant with it.
And the interesting thing is, the design of the connectors forces the hand of at least the knock-off cable manufacturers, into obeying those tolerances. Even if you don't bother to get an MFI license, just making your Lightning cable's male end fit female Lightning connectors means making it structurally-sound—since the male connector is just made out of thick aluminum, and aluminum is already the cheapest metal you can get, and it also needs to serve as a grounding pin as well so you can't just replace it with e.g. plastic. So a bad Lightning cable is never going to break your phone physically.
Will a bad Lightning cable be able to break your phone electrically? Probably not; AFAIK, the the device-side board around the female connector is required, according to MFI, to detect the negotiated-current signal using an optoisolator before switching on the current path to the rest of the device. So you actually can't make a "Lightning killer" cable the way you can make a "USB killer" cable.
I'm not talking about abuse, just expected use. Though if particular vulnerabilities to abuse or whatnot are showing up, that would be of concern.
Standard big USB plugs are supposed to have a design life of 1,500 plugging cycles - though I've never had one die, and never heard of any die.
Mini-USB are designed for 5,000 cycles, Micro-USB have a design life of 10,000. Ditto, only ever breaks if you try to bend and snap it off deliberately.
USB-C is also supposed to be able to last 10,000 cycles (which ought to be enough as a minimum spec - plugging in thrice a day for a decade).
No way. I've had many Micro-USB cables die because the connector gets bent. Trying to plug in devices in the dark or without being able to tell which way the cable is facing, not to mention the tension put on the connector when your device is in a bag or something, means the design is not very reliable in general.
My USB-C cables feel much sturdier, but we'll see.
I wonder whether (well, suspect, I guess, that) crap cables can negatively affect this, e.g. through inferior materials and manufacture / specifications adherence producing more friction. (Anyway, I do my best to ascertain what are quality cables and then, if necessary, pay a bit more for them.)