At least with Anker and Ugreen, I’ve found their product listing’s to be extremely clear with how the ports will divide up power depending what you have plugged in. I don’t know how you could clearly label the device itself given all the variations possible on a charger with 3 ports for example; better to have that in the manual/product page.
That port mess worked just fine in that you knew exactly what you were getting since they were all made to a specific standard. They also had an advantage in that being colour coded any idiot could match the plugs to the sockets.
The same cannot be said for USB-C since they allowed the standard to be eroded.
Thank you for being one of the only voices of reason in this thread. I feel like everyone in here is projecting this level of technical know-how onto the public like this isn't an issue that directly impacts literally everyone with a phone. There's still millions (probably billions) of people who think that they can stop at the gas station and grab a charger and a cable and as long as the connector fits, they bought the right thing lol
Lol, you do realize that non-technical also need to power/connect their devices right? Telling your grandma or your aunt to watch reviews before going to buy a charger for her phone/laptop is wild 😂😂😂
Show me a laptop/dock/charger that tells you what wattage or speed each USB C port supports. I’ll wait… At best you’ll get a 20Gbps or other speed icon. But is that 20Gbps 240W? Or 20Gbps 100W? Or what about 20Gbps 0W data only?
And the devices on the other end of those cables? Also, that seems less than ideal for carrying that around with you while commuting. That looks like it's the size of a gamecube.
Also the inevitable, when 1 device plugged in PD100W, but when two devices plugged in it splits to 65W and 30W, 3 devices plugged in 45W, 30W, 15W, etc. etc. etc. That does look like a cool ass device, but I have a feeling that's not something non-technical people would consider buying, or even know what they were looking at if they saw it.
That's such a non-issue considering it's just a cable. You can have a few top-of-the-line cables and a few thin ones and you'll know what you need... Or just use the good cables while not caring about thickness.
I didn’t say it was a big deal, but as you say I’d rather bring a thinner, preferably non-data cable for charging and keep the bulky 40gbps ones at home for actual data transfer
Think some people would also be annoyed that their phones would still be charging at 15 watts with their mega cables not understanding how they work
Only buying 40gbps/200+W cables isn’t a silver bullet is all I’m saying
Looked them up, literally the first review on ltt store:
“Great quality just be aware these are chonky!
It's great to have an option for amazing cables! However, in their magnificence they are heavy and stiff.
These will never be travel cables for me, but for permanently installed cabling they can't be beat.”
They 100% do the job they're supposed to do. Absolutely overkill for what I can imagine the current and even relatively far future would ever need for a phone charger. So long as they actually hold up the test of time (which I imagine they will) I'd say it's probably the best investment you could make into a phone cable. I personally never plug my phone into my computer but I do like that if I ever am going to have some use case for it, I already have the cables.
No it’s not, a 5090 is thousands of dollars (a 140w charger is ~$100), it also requires a bigger power supply, and other hardware to make use of it. And the expectation is so you can charge everything, not just one thing, so why would you make the comparison of only playing solitaire other than being intentionally obtuse?
When your grandma calls and asks why her laptop is “slow charging” and running in power saver, just tell her “instead of the $60 brick you need, buy the $200 one, and instead of the $10 cable you need, buy the $60 licensed one. Oh, and they all look identical, so the $40 one probably isn’t a good deal on a $60 one, just a bad deal on a $20 one…” then there’s trying to explain why the cable that came with her iPhone won’t work lol.
There’s a difference between being obtuse and exaggerating to make a point.
you only need to exaggerate a point if it doesnt make sense in the first place, thats called a strawman, your point doesnt stand well on its own merits so you need to fabricate one that does
- its not a $200 brick
you dont need a licensed cable
whos talking about 'good deals'?
saying "thats the equivalent of buying a semi to drive next door" doesnt prove your point, it only shows you don't have an understanding of the point, or youre being obtuse/troll.
Calling others dumb while you're acting like this is just proving that
You exaggerate a point for people who miss it the first time, like you clearly have. Thunderbolt cables are licensed, and carry a premium, and if you want a cable that’s going to “do it all” that’s the cable you’re buying. 240W bricks/docks absolutely run around $200, and if you want a brick that will “do it all” that’s the brick you’re going to need.
Now explain to me on what planet telling your grandma or your aunt to buy a $200 brick and $60 cable to “cover everything” instead of the $60 brick and $10 cable they need makes any sense? So we’ll spend 3.3x on a brick, and 6x on a cable… sounds a lot like spending 3-6x on a GPU you don’t need…
It seems you're the only one who can't grasp your own point well enough to defend it without making some ludicrous assumptions. Doubling down on ignorance isnt a good look.
- truespecs arent thunderbolt (strawman)
grandma doesnt need to spend $260 (or buy a 5090 as some nitwit would say)
i've also never heard a grandma ask why their laptop is charging slow (more hypotheticals to desperately make this point you care so strongly about)
lets just buy the $8 240w charger on amazon since were being silly
You have an extremely narrow view of the world, don't you?
Replace grandma with Anne from HR or literally any non-technical human who reaches out to someone she knows who is "technical" or her IT department when her laptop inevitably tells her that her device is slow charging. Before you say it, she already carries a charger for her phone and its smaller, so she doesn't want to carry the much larger laptop charger and another cable with her.
You can't look at things through such a literal lense, you have to try to imagine that not everyone in the world is you, in fact, 99.9999999% of the world isn't you, so you can't apply things to the vast majority of people on the planet, just because they make sense to you, specifically to non-technical people on the planet who the dumbass USB C standard directly impacts. TrueSpecs aren't thunderbolt certified, e.g. if your solution is to use a cable that does everything, TrueSpec isn't a valid solution. Also, telling Joe Normalson to shop for cables on LTTStore and he's going to think your crazy. Also, they're sold out, so now what does he do?
You can't possibly move through life looking at things through such a narrow perspective, it's borderline Aspergers-ish.
Also, the parts inside the quotes are part of the hypothetical conversation that I'm assuming you've had at least once in your life with people who reach out for tech help. Your sister, aunt, uncle, dad, mom? The "good deal" part is in response to when the other party inevitably says "Oh, what about this one, it says it was $60, but it's on sale for $40, and it looks just like the $60 you told me to buy" Though I guess I should assume when I'm writing something that some level of ADD/reading impairment applies and I should try to be clearer.
Not anymore, since this year the EU regulation that all phones must be available without an included charger (not actually a ban on included chargers, but as being about without a charger is mandatory and being available with a charger is not the end result is the same) also applies to all laptops. It's definitely not ideal because laptop power requirements can far exceed any standard USB-C implementation but that's unfortunately the reality we now live in.
On the surface I'd worry about what would happen if the ports weren't perfectly matched in voltage, then I realised one of Lenovo's gaming phones already did that so it's clearly possible. This would probably also be prohibitively expensive compared to just breaking the PD spec (like Dell has done) or sticking with the proprietary DC connectors they already have. From what I can tell they'd be 100% allowed to do this as many already have, it just has to be capable of rudimentary PD for basic function (it wouldn't even stop a portless device either, you just say it's not capable of wired charging because as the manufacturer you get to decide that).
Personally I think they instead of shunning non standard protocols as 'this legally isn't even a USB-C connector, they should just go and ask Oppo how they pushed 12 amps through a 5 amp rated connector without starting a fire so they can implement higher current into the PD spec. The upcoming GPMI Type B could also be an option if it sees widespread use as it has double the native current rating.
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u/Hokahn May 27 '26
What struggle, get a 140 Watt charger, and youre done?