USB-C is better. I love using USB-C. But the ecosystem is so poor right now. Maybe it is the available chipsets people are using but the hubs are awful. Lack of devices using C is pretty apparent as well.
USB-C is slowly taking over the peripheral world. My mouse has it, my keyboard has it, my webcam has it, my external SSD has it. Literally the only USB-A devices I still have are 5-10 years old and barely get used - such as thumb drives.
Even dirt-cheap Chinese knockoffs have USB-C these days. It has gotten to the point that not having USB-C is a red flag for peripheral manufacturers: it's a very minor engineering change and a single-digit cent price increase, so if a device claims to be cutting-edge and it has micro-USB something has gone wrong.
So yeah, my setup currently involves a USB-A hub and several A-C cables. It would be nice if I could just get a proper USB-C hub, but those sadly don't really exist.
USB-C doesn't seem like a great replacement for their current solution though. I really like not having someone ruin my ports or having my computer fly off the table.
The thing is, how long before USB-C is everywhere. It's being adopted at a rapid pace. It sucks now but very soon having nothing but USB-C connectors might be an advantage.
My only beef with usb-c is that there doesn't seem to exist a hub that offers multiple usb-c ports with via a single usb-c port. Until those are mainstream, I feel that usb-c is inferior to a/b.
I notice a lot of people are arguing against usb c, but in reality: devices are designed for the average consumer, not us special HN peeps, usb c is the way forward, we can't use a bulky almost industrial USB connection forever, having a single type of connection has so many benefits, if someone exceeds the plug/unplug rating or the socket breaks for some other reason...it can just be repaired.
Everyone arguing against c like they wanna go back to old style serial port connectors or something.
This is one of the situations where the proliferation of standards is preferable to technological superiority. I far prefer USB-C to be ubiquitously available over having marginally higher transfer or charging speed.
USB-C has a better chance, being effectively USB under the hood with a better connector. There were zero thunderbolt phones. I'm typing this comment on a Pixel with a C port.
90%+ released phones will have USB-C in late 2017 I wager. The alternative mode stuff may take a year or two to sort out though
Why only a single USB-C port? Almost everything I buy these days has only USB-C ports/cables/charging.
It's gotten to the point now that I am increasingly frustrated with the fact that there are no good USB-C capable hubs that take a USB-C USB 4 and turn it into an 8 port USB-C hub. With a mix of 10 Gbps/5 Gbps/480 Mbps speeds.
I can get plenty of USB-C to USB-A hubs, but that is not what I want.
You must be living in an entirely different universe because everyone I know uses tons of usb-c all day.
How about the most popular noise cancelling headphones, the Sony 1000XM3 (usb-c). I see them everywhere.
Some laptops? More like all laptops. Find me one being sold now without usb-c. They would be a joke. The best tablet, the iPad Pro is usb-c (though yes I know the lower end ones are lightning).
What about the best video gear. All the best mirrorless video cameras like the Panasonic GH5, Sony A7iii, Nikon Z7, Fuji T-X3, BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera, all with usb-c. The best webcam out there, the Logitech Brio with usb-c.
Let's talk about specialty gear. The most popular external disk, Sandisk Portable Extreme with usb-c. The most popular mobile hotspot, the Nighthawk mobile router has usb-c. The most popular audio interface, Focusrite, uses usb-c pretty much for all their products now. The best presentation remote, the Logitech Spotlight is usb-c charging.
Me and my friends have flashlights, shavers, toothbrushes, VR headsets and remotes, all with usb-c. Great for travel.
Basically, any good product being released now is usb-c, and has been for the past couple years.
usb c? they're fragile as shit, they're a pain in the ass to solder compared to 3.5mm jacks or rj-11 jacks, the data protocol is a fucking nightmare, making a compliant psu is even worse, 90% of the market consists of noncompliant devices that are thoroughly tested to not work, you have to insert them at the right angle, and, worst of all, here in argentina they aren't even dirt cheap
basically in many ways usb c represents the opposite of what i want to achieve
however, it does have some real merits! the other 10% of the market has some really excellent devices which can reliably deliver many watts of power over relatively lightweight, flexible cables; the connectors are quite thin and lightweight, more so even than 3.5mm jacks; most usb-c devices can charge from usb-a chargers and talk to usb-a data ports, where the data protocol is still a fucking nightmare, but at least it's a widely implemented fucking nightmare that delivers multiple megabits; and even if you do have to insert the connector at the right angle, at least now you can do it without looking, unlike usb-a, mini-b, and micro-b
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