As of last Monday, all of my daily-driver tech is finally on native USB-C. I cannot express how convenient this is without writing an entire essay. It’s like all of those clunky universal AC adapters from the 90’s but better in every conceivable way.
I just plugged my laptop charger into my phone and my phone charger into my laptop. Both were just like “okey-dokey! 👍 Charging.”
The only negative is that it’s still a little annoying checking specs to be sure the PD chargers support the full 5, 9, 12, 15, and 20 volt options as well as finding reliable vendors of 100W, e-marked cables. Hopefully that improves in the future.
Still, it’s better than carrying around discrete chargers for everything. My travel bag feels at least 5 pounds lighter.
If anyone can recommend any high-wattage 12-24v DC power-delivery adapters that can output 20v, please do (i.e. cigaratte-lighter plug style for a car). The best I’ve found so far is a 45w one that will charge my laptop, but only if it’s asleep or off.
I discovered this point a few months ago. I left my laptop’s native power cable somewhere, and I was pretty concerned because I needed to use it. And someone plugged a USB-C in and I was like, “Wait, what? What did you just do?”
The guy explains that most laptops can charge using any ordinary USB-C cable. And I was just astounded. It’s so simple and intelligent. It’s like… maybe there is hope for our civilization after all.
Oh, laptop chargers were the absolute worst - like the early days of cell phones before the EU mandated some much-needed sanity. Every brand had their own style of plug, and even different models of the same brand used different styles. Even if the plugs, voltages, and wattage were the same (e.g. some HP and Dell), you still couldn’t use them interchangeably. Getting a replacement was typically expensive, and it would only work on that laptop.
USB-C PD is game changing in that regard. Even without being able to power all manner of other devices, it’s finally broken the proprietary stranglehold on laptop chargers. I’m also pretty optimistic about the reduction in e-waste we’re going to see. Doesn’t do anything for all the old power bricks in the wild, but at least we’re heading in the right direction.
there’s also the de facto standards – the TS100 (first of the new generation of soldering irons) based charging off the Lenovo power brick not because it was a standard but because everyone already had one laying around
with USB-C we’re in one of those rare periods where ubiquitous and standards actually overlap …