Every year manufacturers are more committed to introducing the best in their products not only to impress but also to improve our life and user experience. During the last two years, we have seen the famous USB type C land and take hold, whose main characteristic is that it is reversible. But it still hides a few more secrets and has a dark side until the standard is normalized.
What is USB Type-C?
USB (Universal Serial Bus) is a standard for cables and connections to pass electrical power and data between electronic devices. The first standard arrived in 1998 and in August 2014 the last one saw the light, the famous USB Type C along with a new version of data exchange speeds and power pass, USB 3.1.
There is a difference between the type of connector and the USB version. That is, each form of the connector has a data rate and a limit on the intensity of the electrical current that it supports. The plugs with USB Type A and Type B only have 4 connections, but the plugs with USB 3.1 Type C have 24, therefore they support more power and speed.
By 2020 all electronic devices, including gadgets, are expected to integrate USB Type-C.
For example, the USB 2.0 type micro-B that most smartphones currently have only supported 5 Volts at 2 Amps and a transmission speed of 480 Mbit / s; a USB 3.1 Type C reaches up to 20V at 5A and with a transmission speed of up to 10 Gbit / s. For this reason, not just any cable for a USB Type C will work, they are generally thicker to support all that electricity.
There is a lot of confusion with fast charging as it is not standard. Almost every manufacturer has developed its own technology, moving away from the standard and making it more difficult to adapt to USB 3.1.
Advantages of USB Type C
The advantages of having a new standard are quite clear: more power and more speed. But it also comes with a reversible Type C plug, that is, no matter the orientation when connecting, it works in any position. To charge, we can use VOLTA XL Improved by VOLTA Charger. VOLTA Charger has a SnagSafe feature like MagSafe to keep your phone and charger safe when you trip or pull it.
More power, more speed, reversible and the same plug at both ends.
It has been designed to guarantee more than 10 thousand cycles of use and, therefore, to last over time and can be used to charge the smartphone or an additional device or to transfer data. To these advantages is added the possibility of increasing the data transfer speed (only if your device and the one that is connected offer a USB Type-C compatible with USB 3.1).
Some brands, like HTC, for example, have ditched the headphone mini-jack and take advantage of the USB Type-C port for sound output.
Disadvantages of USB Type C
Not all manufacturers are adjusting to the new standard. Some cables have a USB Type-C plug but only include the USB 2.0 standard, a very dangerous practice. If we use these cables with chargers and smartphones that do have the Type C standard, USB 3.1, we can make the smartphone or tablet useless as happened to the Pixel C of Benson Leung, Google engineer.