In the field of mobile phones (including other portable digital products), the charging interface is in the three-legged pattern of Lightning, USB Type-Ch (USB-C), and Micro USB.
Among them, Micro USB is on the verge of elimination and is mostly used in low-end products. In new mobile phones, USB Type-C is the Android world, and Lightning is the exclusive Apple .
It is precisely because of the limitations of Lightning that many countries and regions, including EU , have listed it on the "uneco-friendly" list and have begun to strongly promote USB Type-C interfaces with better versatility.
As one of the profit creams of Apple, Apple will naturally not give up on the Lightning ecosystem easily. In order to cater to environmental protection, the new mobile phone has no longer even a charger (charging head) and only comes with a USB-C to Lightning cable standard.
New iPhone comes with a charging cable from USB-C to Lightning
The most important thing is that the chargers dedicated to Apple's early devices are all USB-A interfaces and need to be used with USB-A to Lightning cables. After changing this time, users will need to purchase an additional charger equipped with a USB-C port.
The old iPhone comes with USB-A to Lightning charging cable
I have to say that Apple has also made environmental protection a business and made profits from it.
So, is using the USB Type-C interface really environmentally friendly?
in theory.
However, there is friction in the real world. From a functional perspective, USB Type-C is really shameless to talk about environmental protection.
Let’s look at the charging head first. The interface of the
charging head has two standards: USB-A and USB-C. Unless the pins in USB-A are magically modified, only the charging head equipped with USB-C will support the USB PD charging protocol.
magically modified USB-A interface
That's right, USB PD is the kind of technology that can reach 100W charging power. The latest USB PD3.1 now adds power in three gears: 140W, 180W and 240W. The most headache-inducing part of the charging head is that the 65W~150W fast charging under major mobile phone manufacturers adopts a private protocol and is incompatible with . For better products, will be backward compatible with PD and PPS, but the power is generally only 18W~25W when paired with non-original charging heads and cables, which is barely considered fast charging compared to 5V/2A.
Let’s look at the USB-C cable. The
USB-C cable also has USB-A to USB-C, and USB-C to USB-C. As for the same sentence, unless the pins in USB-A are magically modified, only USB-C to USB-C cables support the USB PD charging protocol.
magically modified USB-A plug
USB-C cable is the most complex thing in history . Some digital products such as the USB-C cable provided by electric toothbrush only supports charging, and the maximum charging current only supports 3A, so data cannot be transmitted. If you use this cable to connect your phone to your PC, you can only charge it, and the PC cannot recognize the phone.
One plus 10 Pro mainly supports the USB-C interface of USB3.1 Gen1 (5Gbps), but the standard USB-C cable only supports USB2.0 speed (99% of the cables included with mobile phones are the same).
Many USB-C cables supplied with high-speed mobile hard drives support up to 10Gbps (USB3.1/3.2 Gen2), but the maximum charging current is only 3A, and the speed when charging the phone will also decrease.
Different specifications Theoretical transmission speed of USB interface
The author roughly counted that there are as many as 13 USB Type-C cables that match according to different functional levels. Among them, the cables that only support 3A current but not data transmission and video output are the lowest cost. We can understand it as the "beggar version". The cables that support lightning are the highest and the most expensive, and it is also the "emperor" among all USB Type-C cables.
The price difference between the lowest end and the top USB-C cable
The biggest original sin of Apple Lightning cable is that it only supports its own hardware products, but fortunately, the charging and data transmission capabilities of the Lightning cable are relatively unified, so you are not afraid of buying the wrong one. The materials and E-Marker chip in the
The materials and E-Marker chip determine its functions and performance
USB-C cable has the best versatility and is also the future development trend. However, the USB-C cable provided with digital products of different types and different prices has problems in terms of charging current, voltage, data transmission speed, etc., and it often brings various unexpected problems when mixed.
is fine. From another perspective, any USB-C cable can charge the phone. From this perspective, it is indeed environmentally friendly. However, When you want to get faster charging speed and want to quickly transfer files between your phone and your computer, you need to choose the most matching USB-C cable (including the charging head).
