Commodity hubs, especially USB2, come with lots of ports; it's up to how many connectors you can reasonably fit on the chassis. But running a trace across the board for USB isn't a great sell. Getting a second board on the other side isn't a great sell, especially for budget computers like this one. So we end up with "unbalanced" ports.
"Unbalanced" USB-C and USB-A ports on a laptop is a bad design. We should be calling out bad designs. HP, Lenovo, Asus, ACER, Dell, ... all contribute to this bad design. Apple even uses unbalanced USB-C ports on the MacBook Air.
This is why I choose the Framework laptop over the big names. Their design has balanced USB ports were it can be charged from the left or right. Balanced power USB ports improves user experience with using on a couch or in a bed. Plugging in two USB to NIC adapters allows the weight to be balanced while working on a lap or some other non-desk environment.
Balanced USB-C ports sold me and what I first look at when reviewing a laptop.
USB-C is the bane of my existence. Everything looks the same, but certain cables won't charge certain devices for seemingly no reason, and other cables won't transfer data, and there's no easy way (AFAIK) to tell the difference
not sure how you can make a cable that doesnt connect power from end to end. I can see if it doesnt charge as fast as others if it doesnt have the bits required for higher current support. and if a device requires >5V to charge, thats on the device not the cable.
> other cables won't transfer data
again, not sure you can make a cable that doesnt connect the USB2 pair from end to end. but if device doesnt use USB2 and requires something else without mentioning it then that again seems to be on the device not the cable.
The USB-C ports are unbalanced. Should have one on the left and right, not side by side.
Unbalanced USB-C ports has become a common bad design in the laptop industry.
Commodity hubs, especially USB2, come with lots of ports; it's up to how many connectors you can reasonably fit on the chassis. But running a trace across the board for USB isn't a great sell. Getting a second board on the other side isn't a great sell, especially for budget computers like this one. So we end up with "unbalanced" ports.
"Unbalanced" USB-C and USB-A ports on a laptop is a bad design. We should be calling out bad designs. HP, Lenovo, Asus, ACER, Dell, ... all contribute to this bad design. Apple even uses unbalanced USB-C ports on the MacBook Air.
This is why I choose the Framework laptop over the big names. Their design has balanced USB ports were it can be charged from the left or right. Balanced power USB ports improves user experience with using on a couch or in a bed. Plugging in two USB to NIC adapters allows the weight to be balanced while working on a lap or some other non-desk environment.
Balanced USB-C ports sold me and what I first look at when reviewing a laptop.
Yup- if you put usb ports on both sides of the laptop you need a retimer chip as the traces are too long/suffer EMI. Which adds to BOM cost.
The first USB type C device was a usb 2.0 device: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N1
There are also USB-C 2 cables.
USB-C is the bane of my existence. Everything looks the same, but certain cables won't charge certain devices for seemingly no reason, and other cables won't transfer data, and there's no easy way (AFAIK) to tell the difference
> certain cables won't charge certain devices
not sure how you can make a cable that doesnt connect power from end to end. I can see if it doesnt charge as fast as others if it doesnt have the bits required for higher current support. and if a device requires >5V to charge, thats on the device not the cable.
> other cables won't transfer data
again, not sure you can make a cable that doesnt connect the USB2 pair from end to end. but if device doesnt use USB2 and requires something else without mentioning it then that again seems to be on the device not the cable.
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