[PConline review] As you know, Apple abandoned the traditional USB Type A interface on its MacBook laptop launched after 2016 and instead used USB Type C in full. When
16 MBP was first released, it was pushed to the forefront because of the design of the full Type C. Some people say that the courage to fully embrace new technologies (Type C) is a manifestation of Apple's innovation and pioneering spirit; but some people say that the comprehensive adoption of Type C with extremely poor compatibility of productivity tools is a wrong product decision that Apple has made without thinking; some conspiracy theories suspect that Apple's move is to sell adapters. After all, Apple's line is as low as two or three hundred, as small as one thousand...
Whoever is right or wrong in these views will not be judged in this article. But no matter what you think about the full adoption of Type C, an objective fact is that because it is too advanced, Mac computers equipped with Type C interfaces do have many inconveniences in their current use. Now that this is a foregone conclusion, instead of arguing whether it is a good product decision, think about how to solve the current problem (the best solution may be to not buy a Mac?…XD).
To solve the compatibility problem of Type C, it is actually very simple, that is, to use adapter cable. Due to the advanced characteristics of Type C, it can be transferred to almost any interface: Type A, Thunder 3, RJ45, HDMI, VGA, memory card slot, etc.
This time we got three adapter cable products from Sapphire, namely Type C to Type A/RJ45, Type C to VGA (with power input) and Type C to VGA (no power input). Next, we will officially enter the evaluation stage.
Appearance Analysis
Frankly speaking, as a adapter, appearance design does not account for a large proportion of user experience - as a line, what's the use of no matter how good it looks? So below we just briefly describe their appearance and then enter the performance testing process.
Type A/RJ45 and VGA (without power input) adapter cable design style is relatively uniform, the overall color is black, uses a metal body, and the product series LOGO is printed on the front. The VGA (with power input) adapter cable looks to belong to another product series, with a white plastic appearance, which is more in line with our traditional impression of "adapter cable". The front is printed with Sapphire's logo and a small hole similar to a speaker is arranged, probably for heat dissipation. The three adapter cables of
are all very lightweight, and the two metal materials may be slightly heavier (compared to plastic), but the impact on portability is completely insignificant.
In addition, unlike the other two lines, the line of Type A/RJ45 will light up a white light when used.
USB speed and network bandwidth test
The device used for testing this time is the 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro equipped with four Thunderbolt 3s (Type C). It is worth noting that only the left-hand interface bandwidth of the 13-inch MBP is 40Gbps in full speed, and the right-hand interface bandwidth has been reduced to only 20Gbps, so all devices in this evaluation use the left-hand full speed interface.
Next we will conduct USB speed test and network speed test on the Type A/RJ45 adapter cable. Official data shows that this data cable can provide RJ45 gigabit bandwidth (125MB per second) and USB 3.0 5Gb (625MB per second).
For network speed testing, we chose the open source cross-platform iperf3 tool to test. The test method is to connect MBP to the LAN through RJ45, and then conduct speed testing with a desktop running iperf3 server. The test results are as follows.
can be seen that due to the speed limit of gateway equipment, the transmission speed is only about 100 megabytes, which is far from reaching the upper limit of the adapter cable. This means that in most cases, you don’t need to worry about adapter becoming a bottleneck in network speed.
Next is USB read and write test. We use the dd tool under Linux to test the mobile hard disk, and the results are as follows.
You can see that the reading speed is 141552288 bytes per second (135MB per second), and the writing speed is 127651662 bytes per second (121MB per second). Due to the speed limits of other IO devices, we cannot measure the maximum bandwidth of the adapter cable.However, this data at least shows that this adapter is not a performance bottleneck most of the time - I think you will not be able to buy a USB flash drive with a read and write speed of 625MB/S...
External display test
VGA adapter without power input can provide an output of 1080P at 60Hz when converting to VGA analog signal , and when converting to HDMI digital signal , it can provide an output of up to 4k at 60Hz.
Another VGA adapter cable with a power input cannot be converted into an HDMI digital signal, so there is only a VGA analog signal output up to 1920*1200 at 60Hz. However, the highlight of this line is that it also has a Type C input port. Connecting the power cable to this input port can charge the computer at the same time, and the power supply can reach up to 60W, which can meet the power supply needs of 13 inches of MBP (15 inches may not be enough).
PConline Evaluation Room Summary
For new MBP users, adapter cable has become a de facto "necessary for life", and the above three adapter cables are one of these products that are trustworthy. They are very fast and will basically not become a bottleneck in IO systems during normal use. Apart from the fact that the fever is a bit severe (the subjective feeling may be up to 40-50 degrees), there is basically nothing to complain about.
In addition to the three products participating in this review, Sapphire has also launched more Type C adapters, including Sapphire Thunderbolt 3 to dual HDMI video output adapters that can support dual 4k 30 Hz output, Type C to single HDMI adapters that support 4k 60 Hz, Thunderbolt 3 to dual DP video output adapters, USB-C (Type-C) four-in-one expansion base, Type-C to USB3.0 x4 converter, Type-C to USB3.0 x3+ Gigabit Lan converter... In other words, Sapphire's product line can basically solve all your needs for Type C.
