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Comment by causality0 | Hacker News Reader

Personally I hate the trend of only charging over type-c. It's an order of magnitude less robust and far more prone to falling out than, say, a ThinkPad connector. Having the option is nice but I despise having to babysit my $100 Asus charger lest I stomp it flat by accident.

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I really don't get this.

USB-C can on do the following on the same cable at the same time

1. Charge 2. Data 3. Video

Your power cable can

1. Charge

How is that "orders of magnitude" worse?

The USB-C connector is a lot easier to break than a normal power connector, it's also pretty fidgety to get right when you fix the connection on the laptop side. The fixability can be done better than normal charging ports, I've done a USB-C daughter board swap in about 2 hours of total time (research, ordering, mounting). The normal way though is doing soldering surface mounted USB-C connectors which is not something I like to do.

Other than Apple's old magsafe connectors, I remember every power connector I've ever had on a laptop to have been pretty easily breakable using angular force, and I know of both myself and a handful of other people who have broken the power connector on our laptops, and yet I haven't seen or experienced such with my USB-C laptops yet (quite possibly as they are lighter weight), so I am surprised you say the USB-C is more easily broken. I do miss magsafe, though: that's the one non-USB-C power connector I think would be worth supporting. (That said I have some memory of magsafe connectors destroying themselves due to the slapping of metal at power, though I never hadn't one die myself.)

I'd agree with this. 100%

I've done replacements of barrel plugs and also USBC ports and the barrel plugs are significantly easier to replace.

Now my USBC charging ports haven't failed me yet, i think that's probably because i have 4 of them on my laptop, and i charge from different ones depending on multiple factors. So I'm spreading the wear around.

That said. When one goes more than likely the others will go shortly there after.

I am not sure why this is an issue.

For example my framework laptop USB C ports are replaceable (for the laptop side).

Also you can buy magsafe like connectors for USB C if you have a regular laptop.

Having one USB C charger for my phone, my laptop, my earbuds, my battery and my remarkable is such a life improvement on trip vs the old barrel connectors. It just doesn't even compare. And we just talk about charging here, one of the multiple uses of USB C.

Sure. But didn't we just agreed that the power adapter doesn't live that long? I better buy a new USB cable every year, that covers power, data and more than a power cable that covers power only for three times the price - if not more - every two years. Not to mention all the other advantages.

It doesn't matter what other things your charging cable can do if the cable itself is worse at doing its primary job.

Can you define how it's worse at it's primary job?

I have two laptops. One with a old school barrel plug and the other with USBC, and the USBC charges faster as it has more wattage.

So.. id like to hear how you define worse?

>Can you define how it's worse at it's primary job?

As the GP said: the cables are less robust and break more easily.

> I have two laptops. One with a old school barrel plug and the other with USBC, and the USBC charges faster as it has more wattage.

This is not a limitation of the barrel plug, it's a limitation of your laptop or charging brick not being able to use or provide a higher rate. I have a barrel plug laptop with a 170W adapter. USB-C chargers above 100W move into 'exotic' range and none go above 100W at 20V, the cables can't move that much current without heating up.

You lose on port if you only charge.

If you badly run out of ports, USB hubs with power pass-through are very much a thing.

Let me provide an alternative way of thinking about it: you _gain_ one port when you're not charging.

If we replaced the usb-c charging port with a normal charging port you would permanently lose it.

Not replaced, in addition. Like Apple does.

Ports take up space on the outside and inside of the computer. If we're going to add an extra port for some proprietary charger, why not just make it an extra usb-c port instead?

If your usbc power cable shorts it's more likely to kill your precious external hard drive plugged in nextdoor.

How is that "orders of magnitude" worse?

I didn't call it orders of magnitude worse. I called it orders of magnitude more delicate and prone to falling out than a bespoke laptop charger like a ThinkPad Slim Tip connector. Why bother misquoting me when my comment is right there?

I don't know what you mean. I plug my USB-C dock with dual monitors into my laptop, I don't even have the option to not charge my laptop while I'm using it at work.

Mind sharing which dock and monitors you use?

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