Comment by yonatan8070
1 day ago
Lenovo has re-invented this particular wheel to fit in laptops, some ThinkPads come with a proprietary Ethernet port which is around the size of USB-C, just with Ethernet signals. And you can get a passive breakout adapter to convert it to RJ45 (idk if it's included with the laptop).
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/cabl...
Just next to the proprietary port is a USB-C one. You can buy a good USB-C ethernet adaptor for less than half the price of the Lenovo dongle.
My ideal would be a non-proprietary, smaller native Ethernet connection capable of 10GbE.
The adapter still has to adapt. That requires power, adds cost, and adds negligible-but-non-zero latency. I don't love the proprietary port being proprietary, but the fact remains it is native Ethernet with no caveats.
They are getting rather small[0] and not-crazy-power-hungry these days!
And if we're being honest: is there really that much difference latency-wise between Ethernet -> NIC -> USB -> CPU and Ethernet -> NIC -> PCIe -> CPU?
[0]: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/new-10-gbe-usb-adapte...
People routinely lose their cool over a $7 slim headphone to usbc adapter.
Which they should, because that situation is a mess too. Either 1) you get an active dongle with a cheap and nasty DAC built in, or 2) you get a passive one and get to discover if your phone manufacturer decided to route the signal from the (probably quite nice) internal DAC out via the USB-C port or not; whether they did so competently given the proximity to signal and power lines; and - separately - whether it even has a mic in ring.
It really is fractally rubbish.
I wouldn’t mind dongles if their cable wasn’t so flimsy, especially when the other cables are strong.