Is USB 2.0 the new standard?

[Marvenp]

It seems the PC world is plotting against Apple, the creator of "FireWire". I went to a huge computer retail store here in Japan today to buy a new external hard disk. I was searching for an 80GB or more FireWire disk and was surpised to find that there were more USB 2.0 HDs than there were of anything else. Is this the new direction of perpheral connections or is this a Japanese thing?

 

[Choppaface]

from what I've read, USB 2.0 isnt as good as it's cracked up to be. if the rumors are true about gigawire, then don't worry about USB 2.0

 

[chicagdan]

Excellent point -- USB 2.0 is becoming the defacto standard even though it's technically inferior to firewire. Go to a Circuit City or Best Buy and you'll see nothing but USB 2.0 CD-RWs for sale (all including a USB 2.0 PCI card.) FW CD-RW, on the other hand, are very hard to find.

Why is it that a standard not written into either Win Xp or OS X has surpassed a standard that is fully supported in both Os?

 

[Taft]

I wouldn't worry.

From what I've read, most OEMs and other hardware firms have embraced both technologies. And Firewire is leveraged in that it has been out longer and has more devices already made. Also the next generation of Firewire has some distinct advantages over USB 2.0--much faster, lower power consumption (lower than Firewire 1 from what I've heard!), power able to go throught the cable to devices, etc. And it is backwards compatible! (Just like USB 2.0).

It seems like both Firewire and USB will continue to be on the market with Firewire continuing to be the high-end and USB continuing to be the standard for things like input devices.

You can find tons of firewire devices out there: hard drives, cd drives, cd burners, dvd players/burners, digital cameras, digital camcorders, mp3 player (at least the iPod, any others? I'm not sure). Anyway, there are a lot.

I've got a CD burner and the iPod for Firewire and I couldn't be happier with them. And any advantage USB 2.0 has pulled is a result of the Intel marketing machine. They do a superior job at marketing the inferior

Matthew

 

[Marvenp]

Re: I wouldn't worry.

Originally posted by mrtrumbe

I've got a CD burner and the iPod for Firewire and I couldn't be happier with them. And any advantage USB 2.0 has pulled is a result of the Intel marketing machine. They do a superior job at marketing the inferior

Matthew

Yeah, that includes the entire PC world. We all know PCs are inferior to Macs but they do one hell of job of convincing the entire world (at least 95% of it) to buy that Windows crap. I wasn't really worried about USB 2.0 taking over I just wanted to know if this was the beginning of a new tech war e.g. (DVD-RAM vs. DVD-RW vs. DVD+RW). I'm sick of these tech wars. I just want the standard to be settled already!

 

[irmongoose]

Its just a Japanese thing...

Well, as I've been here in Japan all my life... I have seen that most Japanese people cant pronounce english words correctly... maybe they think Firewire is too hard to say; so they go with USB.



haha




irmongoose

 

[OSeXy!]

The problem comes with things like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4351196,00.html

"PC owners jealous of their Apple-owning friend's highly desirable iPod MP3 players need covet no more...the £350 Archos Jukebox Recorder 20 ); a hard disk-based palm-sized MP3 player that rivals the iPod in almost every department. Its trump card is its 20GB hard drive - which is four times larger than the one supplied with iPod...
The recorder is also among the first gadgets on sale in the UK to come with a USB 2.0 lead. Developed by Intel, this second generation version of the ubiquitous USB connection is designed for use with MP3 players, camcorders and portable hard drives."

Don't you just love a competitive market?

I mean, the thing is UGLY, larger than an iPod, has a tiny screen and fiddly buttons. But people will say "WOW! And it's got USB 2!... Way better than an iPod!"...

 

[keithcobbett]

USB 2.o is not going to be a big factor if/when Firewire 2.0 (aka Gigawire??) is introduced. It is only a little faster than current Firewire technology and does not natively have the backing of Microsoft or Apple. Microsoft has only recently annouced plans to have a patch available to make it compatible with a WinXP system. Most cameras will probably be USB2.0 compatable, but Digital Camcorders, Laser printers and other things that need a high amount of streaming capabilities, will be Firewire 2.0 compatable.

 

[Macmaniac]

FireWire

When an upgrade of FireWire comes out it will rape everything

___________________________
Not all who wander are lost.

 

[OSeXy!]

...but in the meantime FireWire gets raped...

 

[ftaok]

not necessarily

Originally posted by OSeXy!
...but in the meantime FireWire gets raped...

I read somewhere that data transfer with USB2.0 isn't nearly as reliable as Firewire. Besides, Apple doesn't have to worry until they start making miniDV cameras with USB2.0 instead of Firewire.

 

[evildead]

USB 2.0

USB 2.0 is only in places were there are mostly WinBoxes. In CircutCity... they sell mosltly WinBoxs.. I think they stopped selling Mac's compleetly. So... they sell USB 2.0 stuff. it is just starting to catch on ... and its allready going to become obsoleet. Its not as fast as FireWire2.0 is going to be and it has all the problems that USB 1.1 had. FireWire is becomming standared on all Computers... even PC's are shiipping with them. The new Dell laptops even have FireWire (or what ever the generic name for it is... 1124.... some thing like that)