alt Hacker NewsUnless you want all cables to be thick, $60, and cap out at 1 meter long, this is not a reasonable standard. 480mbps USB-C is perfectly adequate for many applications. Likewise for 60W cables.
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ryandrake • today at 3:53 AM
So, call it USB-D or something, if one cable is significantly different (in purpose, performance, form factor) than another cable. Don't just call everything the same label, and let the non-technical buyer beware.
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I have several 1m long TB4 cables (100W, video, 40Gbps) and they’re neither particularly thick nor were they anywhere close to $60.
The best you can get is TB5 (240W, up to 120 Gbps data transfer) and at 1m long they’re $32 or so from CableMatters. Those are admittedly somewhat thicker, but not stiff.
I wish there was a higher baseline data transfer mandated for usb-c. Sure, 40gbps isn’t needed for all cables, but is some piddly 5gbps too much to ask? We had usb 2.0 speeds back when CPUs just barely entered 1 GHz range, it’s practically ancient technology. Admittedly most people never transfer any data over usb, but with this logic we might as well have usb-c that does charging only. Being able to pick any cable and have 5 gbps baseline means that any usb-c cable is fundamentally usable, if slow. 480 mbps is… ugh.
I don’t have an issue with 60W being the baseline, it’s enough for most laptops and the average GaN charger is 65 W (or less) anyway.