6 ms·

I hate it how we went from simple, to simpler to totally complicated regarding computer ports. "Back in the days", it was a bunch of different ports of differe

I hate it how we went from simple, to simpler to totally complicated regarding computer ports. "Back in the days", it was a bunch of different ports of different sizes and shapes, and each thing had its own cable that fit into that thing only, and into only port only on the back of the pc. Yes, you needed 20 cables, but things were simple. Then came the USB... one cable, one protocol for all.... except video (firewire) and storage (esata). Then even those got replaced by USB, as new usb standards made it faster. And now? You buy a new laptop... usb-c charging, great. You need another charger, you go to the store, find a usb charger, buy it, plugi it in - everything fits - but it won't charge. You need a fast charger... back to the store, bring it home, doesn't charge. You need a PD charger and not a QC charger... store again, new charger... plug it in, doesn't charge. You need a PD charger, that goes up in voltage enough (20V) to charge. Store again, a new one... you plug it in... still nothing. Even though it fits in the hole, not all holes are equal, and you need to plug it into the correct usb port to charge the laptop. Yaay, everthing works! Start a game, play, nice framerate, and bam, battery low warning. Yes, it charges, but your charger is only 45W, and that's not enough, you need a correct wattage one (eg 65W). And then you go to the store and buy an original charger for your laptop, and you're back at where we were 20 years ago, just with a higher chance of plugging the charger in a wrong port, because it fits in more than one hole.

javajosh 5y ago
I wonder if it's possible that we standardize on the "hole" (USB-C) and then make little square things with a male side and a female side that plug into the cable and into each other to add capabilities to the signal path. Each of those square things would have a name and an icon and every device would be characterized by a list of these widgets. (In part I propose this to validate whether this is the correct mental model for what a cable is and what it is expected to do.)
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  • Cables that can transmit high power have to be better at coping with high power. • Cables that can transmit lots of data have to have more / better / shorter wires.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    This implies all USB-C cables could be replaced with 1 super-cable.
    - djur 5y ago
      A thick, short, relatively inflexible, and expensive one.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        The Universal Serial Bus.
ziml77 5y ago
It was absolutely not that simple. You could easily destroy a device if you only went by the fit of the connector. There wasn't even a guarantee that 2 cables with the same ends were compatible since you had both straight through cables and crossover cables.
simon1573 5y ago
"Back in the days" you would either buy an original charger, which the store probably wouldn't have in stock, or buy one of those universal charger with a dozen plugs in which case you would have to be careful to pick a powerful enough charger anyway. You would also have to be very careful to pick a charger with the correct voltage.
- Kayou 5y ago
  Yeah, back in the day I would always be afraid to fry my device when plugging a 3rd party charger, because of the polarity or voltage. Now worst thing that can happen is... nothing. For me that's an improvement.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  Go on any manufacturer site and see what they charge for their USB-C 65w charger that's enormous. Then look at the price of an Anker GaN 65w charger the size of a d-cell battery that's half the price. I think the user freedom and choice is worth some additional complexity.
toper-centage 5y ago
I think we're in a troubled phase of the transition to a truly universal port. I believe soon enough most cables and charging, bricks, and devices, will start to be more versatile and also better labeled. At this point companies are still transitioning and people still don't understand the concept so we'll either. Maybe we need something like color coding in cables, similar to the color strips in resistors. We definitely need some way to know what a cable supports after the label is long gone. With that said, I still prefer the current situation where I can charge my laptop and my phone with the same cable and charger, and the same port can be used to video out.
kalleboo 5y ago
It was never that simple. Your serial cables had peripheral or null-modem (I have a serial cable marked "MIDI" I have no idea what is different). Parallel port cables could be SCSI cables instead. Some cables didn't have all pins wired to save money. With PS/2 ports you had to get the mouse and keyboard the right way around despite having the same port.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  It got pretty simple for a while when old serial & parallel ports were phased out in favor of USB. Also VGA worked for a very long time even after DVI and HDMI appeared on the scene. (I never had as much trouble with connecting displays as I do today)
  - pdpi 5y ago
    DVI was something special, though. The fun of DVI-A vs DVI-D vs DVI-I, then single vs double link.
    - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
      Especially since it was an HDMI video signal anyway. I never understood why it even existed Edit: Ahh I didn't realize DVI was first, that makes more sense. I just remembered getting a DVI motherboard, and an HDMI TV around the same time.
      - ziml77 5y ago
        That's incorrect. It was HDMI that carried a DVI signal.
      - theandrewbailey 5y ago
        DVI was first by a few years. HDMI expanded on DVI-D and added more features.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    Oh gawd yes. Monitors and video cards and laptops all seem to come with different combinations of audio and video ports and I am enough kinds of geek already - I don't Want to be a/v geek.
scoutt 5y ago
I'm pretty sure that USB wasn't created originally with charging capabilities "back in the days". Just power supply (5V @ 500mA max). Charging through USB came after and was when things started to be more complicated: someone used USB as a mean for charging a battery, then bigger batteries came, then people started to complain that devices took too long to charge, then the 500mA limit was moved, then every vendor would implement their own proprietary handshake to negotiate charging current. > things were simple I think USB accomplished its goal by standardizing a lot of communication protocols for a lot of (type of) devices. I lived through the 80's and 90's as a kid. I still feel the pain of plugging a new mouse or joystick and try to make it work. Then USB came and it was 'magic'. Edit: still, if I have a serial port outputting data from a device I'm debugging and I turn on my PC, sometimes Windows would think it has a Trackball mouse connected to the serial port and will move the cursor around until I reboot my computer... I say this as a reminder on how things were back in the day (regarding communication protocols for devices).
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Yeah, usb did standardize a lot... Thunderbolt screwed a few things up, but a few users use tunderbolt devices without actually knowing what they're doing, and where to plug them.
logicalmonster 5y ago
> "Back in the days", it was a bunch of different ports of different sizes and shapes, and each thing had its own cable that fit into that thing only, and into only port only on the back of the pc. When I was a young kid just getting into computers and didn't know what the hell I was doing, I would try and connect the parts solely based on what wire fit into which hole. And amazingly, it just worked. Today, I'm still replicating that clumsy behavior, albeit in different ways.
thermin 5y ago
There's a lot of doom and gloom here; let's see if it really got that bad. >You need a PD charger and not a QC charger... Impossible, all USB-C QC chargers are also USB PD chargers. >into the correct usb port to charge the laptop The port is either marked (everything but MacBooks) or doesn't matter (MacBooks, pretty sweet). >buy an original charger for your laptop Good! Now you have a USB PD charger that covers your laptop and also every device you own that's lighter in wattage. Less chargers to pack when travelling :) >you're back at where we were 20 years ago No, not at all. 20 to 10 years ago all charging ports (including on cameras, phones, everything) were barrel plugs of slightly different diameter; everybody's cranking out their own boxy black chargers putting out maddening variations on the same ~20V for laptops and 3-5V for smaller devices, you can't share chargers between devices, can't always find the replacement, especially if the device is on the older side. Buying a device with a different connector - bam, old charger goes to e-waste (or e-bay). >but it won't charge. You need a fast charger... EU makes it mandatory to say on the packaging what wattage the device needs, and what wattage the chager can provide. Granted, the laptops are not covered by the EU proposition in question yet, but have patience, we don't now have those 240W chargers for nothing :)
- Ginden 5y ago
  > were barrel plugs of slightly different diameter Some of them had the same diameter, so accidentally plugging 12V to 5V port could fry your device.
  - thermin 5y ago
    True! I literally own two identical-looking (to the most minute details of the plug itself) barrel plug chargers (one for the vacuum, the other for the elliptical trainer). One is 18V, the other is 9V, both 500mA At least I'm not afraid that the 65W USB PD charger will fry my phone lol
    - function_seven 5y ago
      I think I can one-up you :) Many years ago I had two Linksys devices. A router and an access point. They were both that blue and gray chassis style. (Like the original WRT54G, except these both predated that model). They had the same size barrel connector. I was fumbling around under my desk getting everything connected when I let the magic smoke out of one of them. Turns out I gave the 9V unit 18V from the other’s wall wart. That may also have been the day I learned the phrase “magic smoke”
silisili 5y ago
Valid points. It's finally getting better, but one has to wonder what took so long. Luckily, it seems QC is finally fading away. Last gen it was a subset of PD anyways, and I've not seen many devices advertising QC5 as a selling point. There are other more niche chargers and cables - look no further than Oppo and Xiaomi and their proprietary things. I suspect this was mainly because USB spec fell behind, leaving companies to go it alone. I imagine these too will go away as the specs now cover their intended charging speeds. In the past, I'd always wished these cables were color coded for quick identification. Like probably many people, I have a box full of unlabeled usb cables that I have no idea the specs on. These new logos will certainly help in that regard, at least. Once I get a few, I fully intend on getting rid of this box of random cables.
the_gipsy 5y ago
> Yes, you needed 20 cables, but things were simple. You also had to buy a new motherboard every time some new peripheral port got adopted.
ksec 5y ago
I am surprised this is the top upvoted comment on HN, in the past anything suggesting USB-C complexity was not the right solution and the old days of simple cable usage were better always get downvoted or intense disagreement. Sometimes it is hard to judge the sentiment of HN. Rumours suggest Apple will go back to Magsafe ( hooray ) and offer USB-C as additional functionality. That way the mental model is simple. You want, fast, full speed usage of your Laptop you use the original charger. If you use USB-C to charge, dont expect it to keep you full voltage given it depends on both cables and charger. I have also wanted USB-C cable to simplify into two model instead of giving 6 options.( if I remember correctly, may be more in the newer 2.1 specification ) Just 2, thinner cable = (may be 30W), and thicker cable is Full USB4 + 240W capability. Right now you can even have USB-C cable without data lane. Although no longer possible with USB-C spec 2.1, but that doesn't solve the problem as there are no mandatory requirement to force the usage of newer spec. It really is a bag of hurt. USB should now stands for Universally Silly Branding.
- lordlimecat 5y ago
  The fact that USB-C is a bloated and complex standard does not imply that other solutions are better. Magsafe is only nice to the extent that all Apple laptops used it, so if you were in the apple world and never lost your $50 charger it was fine. But in the end it was Yet Another Laptop Charger, and it made travelling a pain for anyone with multiple laptops of different make. The current status quo is not perfect but it is much better than it was.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    It's too bad Apple had no interest in making Magsafe available as an industy standard and instead moved to the usb-c standard. The removal Magsafe from apple laptops was the final straw that got me to switch to Linux.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    > Magsafe is only nice to the extent that all Apple laptops used it No, it still remains (arguably) the best laptop charging connector ever. USB C was a step backward in that regard.
ksec 5y ago
Story from Ars. I was trying to help a lawyer out and trying to explain why the $5.00 USB-C cable he'd bought from Amazon wasn't delivering 4K video to his expensive monitor AND powering his laptop too. Me: OK: so its a USB-C cable, but its not a high data rate USB-C cable. Him: But, its a USB-C Cable. Me: but, no, not all USB-C cables are high speed cables. And some of them can't do high speed and power delivery Him: but... its a USB-C cable: it plugs into the port. Me: Um... just because it plugs in, doesn't mean its going to work. You can have USB-C cables that are actually slower than the old USB ports. Him: but.... shouldn't it just work? And so on. For... 15? more minutes? maybe 30? I finally got him to buy a "proper" belkin USB-C cable . Which was bought from a company that should be anonymous, but lets just say that a "refurbished" cable was shipped, which, surprise, surprise ,didn't work, for ANYTHING. This basically sums up everything that is wrong with Tech thinking vs User Thinking.
- lordlimecat 5y ago
  I'm going to hazard that much of the punchline is due to terrible QC / fraud problems on the shipper's website. It would not be a former bookseller named for a South American river, would it?
  - kabdib 5y ago
    Could also be a site named after what came first, before the chicken. Those folks are quite happy to keep scam sellers on their platform.
lordlimecat 5y ago
USB-C PD cables will work for your new laptop same as the old laptop. I can bring a single power brick (with 3 USB outputs) and charge a macbook and a windows laptop and my phone-- all at once. Will it support higher wattages? Maybe not: the cables have to advertise their supported wattages. But maybe that's preferable to years gone by with shady USB cables that would happily cook your phone due to bad wiring. QC is a red herring here, as it was never a USB standard. Some vendors decided to piggyback on a standard connector with a goofy protocol: as if some motherboard / switch vendor decided that the PS2 connector should also be used for a high-end network connector as well.
com2kid 5y ago
The # of types of parallel ports was never that simple. One port, many possible speeds and support modes. > And now? You buy a new laptop... usb-c charging, great. You need another charger, you go to the store, find a usb charger, buy it, plugi it in - everything fits - but it won't charge. You need a fast charger... back to the store, bring it home, doesn't charge. You need a PD charger and not a QC charger... All the chargers I've gotten are multi-mode. And yes buying a tiny charger is a problem. Yes it sucks, but back in the bad old days I had an android phone that came with a charger that could barely charge it if I was streaming video on the phone while it was plugged in. Oops! I've also had laptops that came with such a weedy charger that it had similar issues. FWIW my el-cheapo USB-C hub, charges almost everything.

javajosh 5y ago

I wonder if it's possible that we standardize on the "hole" (USB-C) and then make little square things with a male side and a female side that plug into the cable and into each other to add capabilities to the signal path. Each of those square things would have a name and an icon and every device would be characterized by a list of these widgets. (In part I propose this to validate whether this is the correct mental model for what a cable is and what it is expected to do.)

wizzwizz4 5y ago
• Cables that can transmit high power have to be better at coping with high power. • Cables that can transmit lots of data have to have more / better / shorter wires.
- javajosh 5y ago
  This implies all USB-C cables could be replaced with 1 super-cable.
  - djur 5y ago
    A thick, short, relatively inflexible, and expensive one.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      The Universal Serial Bus.

ziml77 5y ago

It was absolutely not that simple. You could easily destroy a device if you only went by the fit of the connector. There wasn't even a guarantee that 2 cables with the same ends were compatible since you had both straight through cables and crossover cables.

simon1573 5y ago

"Back in the days" you would either buy an original charger, which the store probably wouldn't have in stock, or buy one of those universal charger with a dozen plugs in which case you would have to be careful to pick a powerful enough charger anyway. You would also have to be very careful to pick a charger with the correct voltage.

Kayou 5y ago
Yeah, back in the day I would always be afraid to fry my device when plugging a 3rd party charger, because of the polarity or voltage. Now worst thing that can happen is... nothing. For me that's an improvement.
Godel_unicode 5y ago
Go on any manufacturer site and see what they charge for their USB-C 65w charger that's enormous. Then look at the price of an Anker GaN 65w charger the size of a d-cell battery that's half the price. I think the user freedom and choice is worth some additional complexity.

toper-centage 5y ago

I think we're in a troubled phase of the transition to a truly universal port. I believe soon enough most cables and charging, bricks, and devices, will start to be more versatile and also better labeled. At this point companies are still transitioning and people still don't understand the concept so we'll either. Maybe we need something like color coding in cables, similar to the color strips in resistors. We definitely need some way to know what a cable supports after the label is long gone. With that said, I still prefer the current situation where I can charge my laptop and my phone with the same cable and charger, and the same port can be used to video out.

kalleboo 5y ago

It was never that simple. Your serial cables had peripheral or null-modem (I have a serial cable marked "MIDI" I have no idea what is different). Parallel port cables could be SCSI cables instead. Some cables didn't have all pins wired to save money. With PS/2 ports you had to get the mouse and keyboard the right way around despite having the same port.

foxfluff 5y ago
It got pretty simple for a while when old serial & parallel ports were phased out in favor of USB. Also VGA worked for a very long time even after DVI and HDMI appeared on the scene. (I never had as much trouble with connecting displays as I do today)
- pdpi 5y ago
  DVI was something special, though. The fun of DVI-A vs DVI-D vs DVI-I, then single vs double link.
  - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
    Especially since it was an HDMI video signal anyway. I never understood why it even existed Edit: Ahh I didn't realize DVI was first, that makes more sense. I just remembered getting a DVI motherboard, and an HDMI TV around the same time.
    - ziml77 5y ago
      That's incorrect. It was HDMI that carried a DVI signal.
    - theandrewbailey 5y ago
      DVI was first by a few years. HDMI expanded on DVI-D and added more features.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  Oh gawd yes. Monitors and video cards and laptops all seem to come with different combinations of audio and video ports and I am enough kinds of geek already - I don't Want to be a/v geek.

scoutt 5y ago

I'm pretty sure that USB wasn't created originally with charging capabilities "back in the days". Just power supply (5V @ 500mA max). Charging through USB came after and was when things started to be more complicated: someone used USB as a mean for charging a battery, then bigger batteries came, then people started to complain that devices took too long to charge, then the 500mA limit was moved, then every vendor would implement their own proprietary handshake to negotiate charging current. > things were simple I think USB accomplished its goal by standardizing a lot of communication protocols for a lot of (type of) devices. I lived through the 80's and 90's as a kid. I still feel the pain of plugging a new mouse or joystick and try to make it work. Then USB came and it was 'magic'. Edit: still, if I have a serial port outputting data from a device I'm debugging and I turn on my PC, sometimes Windows would think it has a Trackball mouse connected to the serial port and will move the cursor around until I reboot my computer... I say this as a reminder on how things were back in the day (regarding communication protocols for devices).

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Yeah, usb did standardize a lot... Thunderbolt screwed a few things up, but a few users use tunderbolt devices without actually knowing what they're doing, and where to plug them.

logicalmonster 5y ago

> "Back in the days", it was a bunch of different ports of different sizes and shapes, and each thing had its own cable that fit into that thing only, and into only port only on the back of the pc. When I was a young kid just getting into computers and didn't know what the hell I was doing, I would try and connect the parts solely based on what wire fit into which hole. And amazingly, it just worked. Today, I'm still replicating that clumsy behavior, albeit in different ways.

thermin 5y ago

There's a lot of doom and gloom here; let's see if it really got that bad. >You need a PD charger and not a QC charger... Impossible, all USB-C QC chargers are also USB PD chargers. >into the correct usb port to charge the laptop The port is either marked (everything but MacBooks) or doesn't matter (MacBooks, pretty sweet). >buy an original charger for your laptop Good! Now you have a USB PD charger that covers your laptop and also every device you own that's lighter in wattage. Less chargers to pack when travelling :) >you're back at where we were 20 years ago No, not at all. 20 to 10 years ago all charging ports (including on cameras, phones, everything) were barrel plugs of slightly different diameter; everybody's cranking out their own boxy black chargers putting out maddening variations on the same ~20V for laptops and 3-5V for smaller devices, you can't share chargers between devices, can't always find the replacement, especially if the device is on the older side. Buying a device with a different connector - bam, old charger goes to e-waste (or e-bay). >but it won't charge. You need a fast charger... EU makes it mandatory to say on the packaging what wattage the device needs, and what wattage the chager can provide. Granted, the laptops are not covered by the EU proposition in question yet, but have patience, we don't now have those 240W chargers for nothing :)

Ginden 5y ago
> were barrel plugs of slightly different diameter Some of them had the same diameter, so accidentally plugging 12V to 5V port could fry your device.
- thermin 5y ago
  True! I literally own two identical-looking (to the most minute details of the plug itself) barrel plug chargers (one for the vacuum, the other for the elliptical trainer). One is 18V, the other is 9V, both 500mA At least I'm not afraid that the 65W USB PD charger will fry my phone lol
  - function_seven 5y ago
    I think I can one-up you :) Many years ago I had two Linksys devices. A router and an access point. They were both that blue and gray chassis style. (Like the original WRT54G, except these both predated that model). They had the same size barrel connector. I was fumbling around under my desk getting everything connected when I let the magic smoke out of one of them. Turns out I gave the 9V unit 18V from the other’s wall wart. That may also have been the day I learned the phrase “magic smoke”

silisili 5y ago

Valid points. It's finally getting better, but one has to wonder what took so long. Luckily, it seems QC is finally fading away. Last gen it was a subset of PD anyways, and I've not seen many devices advertising QC5 as a selling point. There are other more niche chargers and cables - look no further than Oppo and Xiaomi and their proprietary things. I suspect this was mainly because USB spec fell behind, leaving companies to go it alone. I imagine these too will go away as the specs now cover their intended charging speeds. In the past, I'd always wished these cables were color coded for quick identification. Like probably many people, I have a box full of unlabeled usb cables that I have no idea the specs on. These new logos will certainly help in that regard, at least. Once I get a few, I fully intend on getting rid of this box of random cables.

the_gipsy 5y ago

> Yes, you needed 20 cables, but things were simple. You also had to buy a new motherboard every time some new peripheral port got adopted.

ksec 5y ago

I am surprised this is the top upvoted comment on HN, in the past anything suggesting USB-C complexity was not the right solution and the old days of simple cable usage were better always get downvoted or intense disagreement. Sometimes it is hard to judge the sentiment of HN. Rumours suggest Apple will go back to Magsafe ( hooray ) and offer USB-C as additional functionality. That way the mental model is simple. You want, fast, full speed usage of your Laptop you use the original charger. If you use USB-C to charge, dont expect it to keep you full voltage given it depends on both cables and charger. I have also wanted USB-C cable to simplify into two model instead of giving 6 options.( if I remember correctly, may be more in the newer 2.1 specification ) Just 2, thinner cable = (may be 30W), and thicker cable is Full USB4 + 240W capability. Right now you can even have USB-C cable without data lane. Although no longer possible with USB-C spec 2.1, but that doesn't solve the problem as there are no mandatory requirement to force the usage of newer spec. It really is a bag of hurt. USB should now stands for Universally Silly Branding.

lordlimecat 5y ago
The fact that USB-C is a bloated and complex standard does not imply that other solutions are better. Magsafe is only nice to the extent that all Apple laptops used it, so if you were in the apple world and never lost your $50 charger it was fine. But in the end it was Yet Another Laptop Charger, and it made travelling a pain for anyone with multiple laptops of different make. The current status quo is not perfect but it is much better than it was.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  It's too bad Apple had no interest in making Magsafe available as an industy standard and instead moved to the usb-c standard. The removal Magsafe from apple laptops was the final straw that got me to switch to Linux.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  > Magsafe is only nice to the extent that all Apple laptops used it No, it still remains (arguably) the best laptop charging connector ever. USB C was a step backward in that regard.

ksec 5y ago

Story from Ars. I was trying to help a lawyer out and trying to explain why the $5.00 USB-C cable he'd bought from Amazon wasn't delivering 4K video to his expensive monitor AND powering his laptop too. Me: OK: so its a USB-C cable, but its not a high data rate USB-C cable. Him: But, its a USB-C Cable. Me: but, no, not all USB-C cables are high speed cables. And some of them can't do high speed and power delivery Him: but... its a USB-C cable: it plugs into the port. Me: Um... just because it plugs in, doesn't mean its going to work. You can have USB-C cables that are actually slower than the old USB ports. Him: but.... shouldn't it just work? And so on. For... 15? more minutes? maybe 30? I finally got him to buy a "proper" belkin USB-C cable . Which was bought from a company that should be anonymous, but lets just say that a "refurbished" cable was shipped, which, surprise, surprise ,didn't work, for ANYTHING. This basically sums up everything that is wrong with Tech thinking vs User Thinking.

lordlimecat 5y ago
I'm going to hazard that much of the punchline is due to terrible QC / fraud problems on the shipper's website. It would not be a former bookseller named for a South American river, would it?
- kabdib 5y ago
  Could also be a site named after what came first, before the chicken. Those folks are quite happy to keep scam sellers on their platform.

lordlimecat 5y ago

USB-C PD cables will work for your new laptop same as the old laptop. I can bring a single power brick (with 3 USB outputs) and charge a macbook and a windows laptop and my phone-- all at once. Will it support higher wattages? Maybe not: the cables have to advertise their supported wattages. But maybe that's preferable to years gone by with shady USB cables that would happily cook your phone due to bad wiring. QC is a red herring here, as it was never a USB standard. Some vendors decided to piggyback on a standard connector with a goofy protocol: as if some motherboard / switch vendor decided that the PS2 connector should also be used for a high-end network connector as well.

com2kid 5y ago

The # of types of parallel ports was never that simple. One port, many possible speeds and support modes. > And now? You buy a new laptop... usb-c charging, great. You need another charger, you go to the store, find a usb charger, buy it, plugi it in - everything fits - but it won't charge. You need a fast charger... back to the store, bring it home, doesn't charge. You need a PD charger and not a QC charger... All the chargers I've gotten are multi-mode. And yes buying a tiny charger is a problem. Yes it sucks, but back in the bad old days I had an android phone that came with a charger that could barely charge it if I was streaming video on the phone while it was plugged in. Oops! I've also had laptops that came with such a weedy charger that it had similar issues. FWIW my el-cheapo USB-C hub, charges almost everything.