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That’s a welcome development given all the proprietary and incompatible charging solutions laptop manufacturers have foisted on consumers for years, though the inevitable design compromises mean that these may not be the thinnest or lightest computers. To help with the changing of the guard, some laptops are equipped with both USB-C and USB-A ports.
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If you still rely on regular USB to connect printers, memory card readers and other “legacy” peripherals and accessories, again, an adapter or dock may be required. Omdia puts laptop penetration for USB-C at 82 percent. It’s a similar story on laptops, where USB-C is getting much of the love these days, rather than the regular USB ports that have been on the machines for years. It is important to note that while a USB-C cable is backwards compatible with the other varieties of USB, the different connecting form factor means you will need a dongle or adapter to plug it into one of those ports. For now, smartphone penetration for USB-C is around 50 percent, according to the London global research firm Omdia. But the latest top-tier Android phones have mostly migrated to USB-C, though the same can't be said about lower-cost handsets, a situation that should change as the cost of USB-C falls. Many Android phones, even those just a few years old, have so-called mini-USB or micro-USB cables and ports, and while both are also smaller than regular USB, they are different from each other.
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This cord-connector conundrum afflicts Android, as well. Then again, on some recent tablets, Apple ditched Lightning for USB-C, meaning that one end of the cable goes into the USB-C port and the other into the USB-C power adapter, which is still supplied. If you have an iPad, it may have a Lightning port.
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USB-A is better known without the “A” suffix it’s just USB or regular USB to the average person. And USB-C is smaller and not to be confused with the familiar rectangular USB-A port that may be on your older power adapter, meaning the cord in the box won’t fit that adapter. The increasingly popular slim, oval-shaped USB Type-C connector is popping up on all kinds of devices. Apple supplies a Lightning-to-USB-C cable with the latest iPhones. If you have an iPhone, the answer could be yes, since the phones still employ Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector, which has been a staple on the company’s handsets since the iPhone 5 was released in 2012 (that’s when Apple replaced the 30-pin dock connector that had been on prior models).īut the answer can also be no. The short answer is maybe, and it depends on the device.
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