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Review: CalDigit's TS3 and TS3 Lite Thunderbolt 3 Docks Offer Solid MacBook Pro Expansion Options
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Since you mention "work", the advantage of a dock is so you can come into work everyday, and just plug one cable into your Macbook, instead of a myriad of cables that you may have to connect multiple monitors, power, USB devices, audio, etc. That will soon wear out your beloved legacy ports.
Docks of this type are not meant for portable users...something like this is, though...
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The lack of support for MST has been annoying for a long time. It was actually on my wishlist for 10.13.
It is nice to have that one-cable solution, but it shouldn’t be the only one. It should be possible to have those “legacy” ports without having to plug in an adapter like that. It kind of defeats the purpose of a laptop. What if you need to copy some files from a flash drive on the train to work or copy some files from your camera’s SD card in a coffee shop? Laptops are supposed to be functional. If you only have one kind of port, it’s not very functional. In the very least, you should have one USB Type-A port.
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It won't work because the MacBook is USB C only. These are Thunderbolt 3 docks.
Looks are subjective. I think the Lite looks cheap, and I don't like the reflectivity of the OWC or the uglier labels on its ports. As for functionality, I prefer this one because it has eSata and does a full 85W of charging, as well as the flexibility you have with its orientation.
It isn't Apple quality, but it looks very similar to Lacie's D2 Quadra drive, which I like and will be pairing this with. I do kind of wish they'd kept the old "space grey" color though.
Hmm. Take a closer look at the Amazon reviews on that unit. BTW, The condition of the ports are great on my used SSD-equipped 2006 17" MBP: MagSafe, 2x USB, FW800, FW400, Ethernet, Audio i/o, Cardbus, DVI. But then, I take care of my equipment.
What I also find amusing is that people are overly concerned with looks instead of engineering and build quality. Maybe that "thin" brainwashing is starting to pay off.
Example: There are probably people on here that would not accept the piece of gear shown below (see images) because it may be considered "old-looking" or "ugly" when in fact it is an excellent piece of professional equipment, still being made, and will never need a software update nor a dongle. Take a look. Talk about Legacy Connectors:
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The single port Macbook is not TB3, it's USB-C. You must not use any Thunderbolt 3 dock, instead you should use Caldigit's USB-C dock. That's the only usb-c dock that works perfectly with MacBook, charging, video, usb 3.0 and superdrive support. read this over
http://crazydiamondstar.blogspot.com/2016/08/usb-c-dock-best-baymax-for-macbook.html
Tell that to my trusty 2011 MBP 17" which has spent most of its life alternating daily between home and work desks with no sign of worn out ports, the 15" MacBook Pro I had before that, and the half-dozen various MacBooks in use by my colleagues (who would come to me if they had a busted port). Sorry, those legacy ports are built to withstand daily unplugging.
The only USB-A port I've had fail is on a PC case, and I think that was semi-broken to start with. The main culprits were the old, pre-MagSafe, jack-style power plugs.
Time will tell how robust USB-C ports are (Lightning looks better-engineered to me). They're certainly a downgrade from MagSafe for the most commonly attached cable -power.
Oh and "myriad" probably averages out at about 3.5 - hardly the labours of Hercules.
Same here, the same mac can run MST when booting to Windows, I don't know why macOS doesn't support it. Windows users have been pretty happy with MST solutions.
So you're basically saying that a dock is worthless on a Macbook. Thanks for sharing your story.
No, I'm just saying that a major purpose of a dock isn't - as you ridiculously claimed - to prevent your ports from wearing out.
...and while 1-cable docking is certainly nice and neat if you have a few hundred bucks to blow on a dock, having to plug/unplug 2-4 cables twice a day is definitely one of those "first world problem" thingies (especially for the last few years when its just been MagSafe and USB rather than those pesky D-connectors with their retaining screws and fragile power jacks). By dropping the ports that many of us use daily, the new MBPs have turned a dock from an expensive luxury into an expensive necessity.
And none of them are what this device is: a docking station. As anything with computers or electronics: they never work 100%, there are always issues.
Apple gets it fine and so does everybody else in the IT industry. The one not getting it is you. You fail to understand that a docking station is something very different from those dongles and adapter boxes you speak of above. You also fail to understand that these docking stations are anything but new. They have existed probably as long as notebooks have existed which would be more than 20 years!
Unlike dongles and adapters, docking stations are not meant to adapt/convert anything. Docking stations are meant to connect everything at your desk to the machine at once. Not by connecting a plethora of cables you'd have to do with any notebook no matter the ports but by either 1 connector be it directly bolted onto the docking station itself (as we've seen for years) or attached to a piece of cord (as we are seeing since the USB docks have been introduced more than a decade ago).
In the past this connector was proprietary and you had to buy a new docking station when you went with a different model from the same manufacturer (unless you were really lucky and they used the same docking station for 2 or 3 models). It also meant that you could only buy from the manufacturer. Nowadays these docking stations use the universal USB-C with either USB or Thunderbolt going over it. You can now buy a dock from any manufacturer that offers one and that greatly reduces cost for any company. You buy 1 type of docking station in bulk (additional discount!) and use it for a plethora of different models and even brands of notebooks. No more having a spare one from every possible model used in your company, you just need a few.
Luckily these Thunderbolt docking stations are also very reliable, more so than their USB counterparts (that either use USB-A or USB-C as the connector). They have solid performance and are able to sustain high loads for a long time. That's because they use solid technology such as PCIe and DisplayPort and because Thunderbolt is designed for things like this. It is no different than those old proprietary docking stations (might even be more reliable since it is now just a cable you connect instead of a highly complicated docking mechanism; it usually was this mechanism that broke down).
I'll be receiving mine in a couple of days and will be seeing how the single cable data + charge solution is going to work out. My current Thunderbolt 1 CalDigit docking station still works perfectly fine and I'm guessing the TS3 won't be any different.
Yes and by going USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 they are now letting it go completely. The might accessory manufacturers from China have full control now.
Unfortunately in most cases like this it is in fact the user who is the weakest link. Computers are still rather complex devices and most users still have little to no clue about them. It is why ransomware and spam are so extremely successful and why people still jam a USB-A connector into a RJ-45 port even though any toddler doesn't because they know it won't fit. USB-C is actually one of the pieces of technology that make things more easy for users to understand and that is why it is very important that we start implementing it. ASAP!
TL;DR: docking stations have been around for a couple of decades and they have never been and never will be about adding legacy ports back. Docking stations serve 1 purpose only: connect all peripherals to the notebook with a single connector. Any other implementation is simply not a docking station.
Apple had to do it because the Intel CPU they used simply doesn't offer enough PCIe lanes. They could have used the same CPU as in the 15" but the impact on battery life would have been bigger than the benefits of having those additional PCIe lanes. You simply connect something like a dock or display to the slow side of the 13" and you're fine.
Not really - a typical laptop docking station has always done a bit of both. Last time I had a PC laptop with a dock, the dock added things like dual DVI (and probably parallel printer & RS232) that just weren't on the laptop (the controllers may have been, the connectors weren't). You can use a TB1/2 dock to add USB3 to a 2011 MBP that only has USB2, or ethernet, ESATA or FireWire to a rMBP. Whats happening now is that people are looking to TB3 and USB-C docks as an alternative to multiple adapters needed to connect their existing devices to a new MBP.
You're funny
So, lets see... all the following now have identical connectors (unless you have your Scout's badge in USB-C icon recognition):
- USB-C charge cables that support charging at 87W but only carry USB-2 data
- USB-C to USB-C cables that will work with USB-C displays but (probably) not TB3 displays and charge at 3A (help! I'm a user who tries to plug USB cables into ethernet ports and certainly can't tell an Amp from a Watt!)
- Passive thunderbolt cables that can also do USB-3, charge at max 60W but won't do full speed TB3 if they're over 0.5m and may or may not drive a USB-C display.
- Active thunderbolt cables that can do full-speed thunderbolt, but only do USB-2 if connected to a USB-C socket, and certainly won't drive USB-C displays.
- Full power USB-C and/or Thunderbolt cables... at least, I assume that the cables shipping with USB-C or TB3 products that offer 87W charging can actually supply 87W - but the separate cables sold in the Apple store clearly say either 60W or 3A...
...then we have computers/phones with USB-C outputs which may or may not support USB3.1gen1, USB3.1gen2, various levels of power in/out, Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort alt mode, HDMI alt mode (coming soon), other alt modes to come...
...three completely different and incompatible ways of driving displays (DisplayPort alt mode, HDMI alt mode, DisplayPort over Thunderbolt) which may or may not be supported by any given device...
...coming soon: 2 completely different types of USB-2 to HDMI cable (active DisplayPort to HDMI, passive HDMI alt mode)
...non-obvious bandwidth restrictions (USB-C can't handle USB 3.1 data and 4k@60Hz video)
...and, inevitably, cheap knock-off cables that don't actually follow the standards.
So yeah, right, people who currently can't even work out that you put the square peg in the square hole are going to cope really well with a dozen permutations of identical square pegs that fit oh-so-neatly into the square hole but don't actually work. Good luck with that.
At least, beforehand, if the plug did fit the hole there was a 50/50 chance that it would work...
You are not reading what I wrote nor understanding what a docking station is. As I said a docking station is nothing but a device that allows you to connect all of your peripherals at once by connecting a single connector to the notebook. There is no limit as to kind of ports or how many. In other words, just because the notebook has 4 TB3 ports doesn't mean that a docking station can only connect those or can only connect 4 peripherals.
No, what's happening is people using the wrong reasons. Again, docking stations are never meant to put legacy ports on a notebook. That's why these Thunderbolt 3 docks have the same (or almost the same) port layout as their Thunderbolt 2 predecessors. The CalDigit TS3 is exactly the same as the TS2. The only difference is TB2 vs TB3. If TB3 docks were indeed means of adding legacy ports to the notebook then they'd have more of them and would add things like USB2, PS/2 (ports that are still used quite a lot), etc. That alone tells you it isn't about adding legacy ports at all
Again, just because these docks have such ports doesn't mean that their sole purpose is adding legacy ports. In fact, their sole intent is to connect all of your peripherals with a single connection.
If you say that now you have to go buy a docking station because they come with the ports you need to connect your peripherals then that is a good reason. If you say that these docking stations are meant to add legacy ports or that manufacturers are putting them on the market because of that then those are wrong reasons (and you'd be incorrect as well).
Ah so you are one of those textbook examples of someone with progress-anxiety because everything you bring forward as an argument is nothing but an excuse. In fact all those excuses are the main reason why we should move towards USB-C ASAP. As you've demonstrated there currently are too many different cables due to having to use non-USB-C connectors on one end of the cable. That's one of the reasons why we need to adopt USB-C ASAP: we can have USB-C on both ends of the cables which cuts down the amount of different cables to choose from tremendously.
USB-C is 1 kind of connector which you can plug in upside down. You can't do that with HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort, mini-DisplayPort, USB-A, USB-B, RJ-45, etc. etc. etc. Nor can they do something like inserting USB-A into RJ-45 like they are doing now. That's what simplifies things greatly for users. The next step would be to decrease the amount of different kinds of USB-C cables we have. And the only way of accomplishing that is by adopting the standard ASAP so that it makes all the old cables obsolete.
And we have people who are ranting about stuff they have clearly no idea about
USB-C is only hardware and thus none of the protocols you mentioned matter. Especially because USB-C has this thing called alternate mode which it uses to carry all the non-USB protocols. With the cable not being the issue, it is the items at each end of the cable that matter. But that isn't the entire story though. The cables come in a couple of variants: passive, active or just for charging (those cables only support the basics which is charging and USB2.0). In most cases people don't even have to understand the passive vs active thing since active ones are mainly for Thunderbolt anyway (which is a power-user thing and thus we are talking about people who know what it is for) and both will work.Basically this USB-C standard allows people to simply use a cable and not worry about supporting any of the protocols you just mentioned. What they do need to worry about is whether the device they want to use is compatible with their computer. Something that most likely is never going to change.
No good luck necessary as you cannot plug in USB-C into the wrong port when there is only USB-C
That issue only exists in a world where there is more than USB-C. Hence why we need to move to USB-C ASAP.That would only apply to notebooks having only 2 ports. In all other cases, which would be all of the notebooks, the chance of success was a lot smaller.
That may be what your personal made-up dictionary says, but here in the real world "docking stations" and "docks" cover a wide variety of products sold for various different purposes. I've used docking stations that included things like parallel printer and RS232 ports that had been replaced by USB on the laptops that docked in them.
They have USB3 ports, which are backward-compatible with USB 1&2. Why would they add USB 2 ports?
The OWC dock has FireWire (legacy!) and SPDIF (legacy!)... in fact if you use Apple's definition of "legacy" - i.e. everything they've dropped from the 2016 MacBook Pros - all of the ports are "legacy" apart from the Thunderbolt in and out ports...
So, let's get this argument right - if docking stations were meant to support legacy ports then they'd include every obsolete port you can think of, even ones like PS/2 which were never used on Macs and only linger around on PCs because they're used for keyboard/mouse switches in PC server farms (not a key market for desktop TB3 docks, methinks).
Sorry, no.
Who said sole purpose? They've always served multiple purposes.
Nope. Read the examples I gave. Apart from the HDMI issue, all the cables I was talking about have USB-C connectors at both ends. Plug a high speed USB-C external drive into the USB-C connector MBP with an Apple USB-C charge cable and it will only run at USB 2 speeds. Connect a LG/Apple 4k display with an active Thunderbolt cable (USB-C at both ends, remember) and it won't work. Connect a LG/Apple 5k display with a non-Thunderbolt cable and it won't work. Connect a USB-C dock that has 90W charging to your 15" MacBook pro with the wrong USB-C to USB-C cable that doesn't support 90W charging and it will charge slowly or discharge under heavy use. Connect any Thunderbolt 3 device to a 12" MacBook and it won't work.
Having one connector, one cable for everything would be a great idea, but USB-C/TB3 haven't delivered that - they've delivered a confusing variety of superficially identical and mechanically compatible ports and cables with huge numbers of permutations. Welcome back "Plug'n'pray".
But, hey, you can plug it in upside down...
Nice, then I have multiple names such as CalDigit, OWC, HP, Dell, Lenovo, IBM, Hengedocks and many more!
Or in other words: this isn't my definition but the definition used by all those manufacturers. Even Wikipedia people agree on it
Because they behave differently than USB3. There are still many devices out there that will not work or work unreliably when used on a USB3 port. Besides, you are shooting yourself in the foot here because why on earth would you want to use any USB-A ports when USB-C is backwards compatible with all of them (it can do USB3.1 Gen 2 all the way down to USB1.1). It would be an even better idea to do so because you'd then be able to still use it in the future when more and more stuff is going USB-C.
And yet again you have no idea what you are talking about. PS/2 ports are not used that much on servers (there is no such thing as a PC server because it is either a PC or a server and it isn't just a farm either), they have mostly moved to USB because it is much easier.
PS/2 however is used extensively on PCs because it does something USB simply cannot: provide n-key rollover. USB can only register a maximum of 6 keystrokes at the same time. For gaming this makes a huge difference as well as for those who type really fast.
PS/2 is also used extensively with mechanical keyboard enthusiast because many of those old keyboards are PS/2 or DIN (which is easier to convert to PS/2 than to USB, you'd normally convert to PS/2 and then USB).
The same can be said about serial and parallel ports. These are still used extensively in laboratories and IT (managing switches and such).
Just about anyone in this thread including you.
You did since everything below doesn't matter with USB-C to USB-C cables:
It's a charging cable which is labeled and advertised as such. Do note that it doesn't stop the drive from working at all or working properly. It just isn't as fast as the drive can be but that is a complex thing anyway (it is not going to be as fast as advertised when moving lots of small files).
Not entirely true. It provides the basic USB-C configuration which is the same as the charging cables (=power and USB2.0 data).
This isn't entirely true either as the same thing applies. When using the charging cable that came with the MBP you can connect that display and have it charge the notebook.
What you are talking about here is the active vs passive difference and that difference is extremely simple to grasp. The active cables are marked with a lightning icon AND the number 3. That makes it rather easy to explain to the average user. Users aren't that retarded.
That is not a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 issue but an issue with the 15" MBP. In high load the power draw of this notebook exceeds the 85/87W those chargers can provide and thus you end up with a battery that is slowly discharging. It is something we've known since people started experimenting with it. As demonstrated by many other 15" MBP users even a very small 15W charge is enough in those lower end cases and 45 to 60W is enough for average usage.
Again, this is just passive vs active. Connect a charger with such a cable and it will work. On the other hand you can apply that logic to just about anything that isn't using USB-C (the MacBook only has USB-C so anything that doesn't have it won't work because you can't connect it).
And that is where you are so dead wrong. You clearly are missing the fact that we are already in a "1 plug is all you need" era. Many people are using it as such since the MacBook with USB-C was released. The proof of that can be found easily on the forums here (people only connecting their LG 27" display to it which connects all the other peripherals to the notebook; the Apple-LG cooperation also shows this as do all those docking stations).
The problem here is that you seem very negative towards new technology. It makes you only see issues (which quite frankly aren't there are not as big as you make them out to be) instead of the solutions and the potential. You are even ignoring the many examples that can be found on the forums here, the official definition of what a docking station is (which manufacturers and Wikipedia use) as well as making people believe there are tons of different kinds of USB-C only cables where in fact there are only 2 (active, aka Thunderbolt 3, and passive).
That doesn't have any thing to do with USB-C at all. It simply is about quality of both hardware and software. With the complexity of today you have to be prepared to expect things to not work 100% of the time. Software isn't bug free and neither is hardware. It has always been a matter of "plug & pray" and it always will be.
Laugh all you want but don't underestimate the power of simple features like this! This is by far the most important thing USB-C brings us. Having a 1 cable solution is nothing compared to this, absolutely nothing!
Lets see..
Dyn: "docking stations are not meant to adapt/convert anything"
Whereas...
OWC USB-C Dock: "Featuring 10 ports, USB-C Dock brings the connectivity you need back into your day-to-day. "
OWC TB3 Dock: "...work with legacy FireWire storage..."
Caldigit TB3 Station Lite: "If you are a 2016 MacBook Pro or PC user with Thunderbolt™ 3, the TS3 Lite will add extra connectivity options to your computer" ... "Most modern laptops are featuring less connectivity options. The USB 3.1 Type-A and Type-C ports on the TS3 Lite are a great way for users to add iPhones, iPads, USB storage, and more to their laptop"
...or you could just look at the specs and see that they (variously) have HDMI, Ethernet, eSATA and audio/SPDIF outputs (not protocols directly supported by USB-C/TB2), which is a bit odd for something that is "not meant to adapt/convert anything".
Sure, they also push the "single cable connect" feature, and its important, but offering a variety of different port types is also a clear priority. If your claim was true, and it was only about connecting multiple devices to one port, why don't they just have multiple USB-C ports (since USB-C is so far superior to any other connector)? In fact, extra USB-C ports is the one thing many of them don't offer.
Sure, who is going to notice the difference between 480Mbps and 5Gbps when they plug in their external SSD...
I think most people would regard having an image on the screen as being a minimum requirement for a display to be "working".
Well, its an issue with Apple dumping MagSafe on the MacBook Pro in favour of USB-C. I assume that the reason that all USB-C/TB3 cables don't support full power charging is that a cable with thick enough power wires and 4 pairs of data wires is just too thick and unwieldy. Maybe they should have thought of that before making USB-C the only way of charging high-end devices like the MBP.
Simply not true. Even the wikipedia page lists 4-5 types (and that's without Thunderbolt) - now, maybe those won't all see the light of day, like the separate regular (5Gbps) and "superspeed" (10Gbps) versions (but that distinction is part of the spec), but let's remind ourselves what you can actually buy from the Apple store:
USB-C charge cable (85W charging, but only USB 2.0 data)
USB-C data cable with 60W charging capability (fixed in the cable ID chip)
Passive Thunderbolt Cables (3A/60W charging capability + all USB-C features)
Active Thunderbolt Cables (needed for 40Gbps speeds over > 0.5m, 60W charging, USB 2.0 only)
Active Thunderbolt Cables with 85W charging (as shipped with the LG 5k display)
...and elsewhere:
USB-C data cable with 5A/100W charging capability
Oh, and for added confusion points, you can only find that stuff out by going in and reading the detailed specs about max speeds and charging currents...
I'll refrain from throwing the forthcoming optical TB3 cables into the mix - since they'll cost hundreds of bucks (and won't say "Monster" or "Denon" on the label) so people will probably notice.
Ahem:
Yup. Those users are really going to grock six different types of cable that all fit into the same connector...
You do know that the USB-C connectors on the LG 4k USB-C display are USB 2.0 only? if you connect a 4k@60Hz display via USB-C then it uses all 4 of the high-speed data lanes are needed for DisplayPort.
The 5k TB3 display fares a bit better - its USB-C ports at least support 3.1, but there's no TB3 passthrough - the display uses over half the TB3 bandwidth anyway so you wouldn't want to connect your super-fast 40Gbps TB3 peripherals to the same controller as the 5k if you could avoid it.
The problem with progress here is that USB/TB bandwidths have merely doubled, whereas the move to 4k/5k displays has quadrupled the bandwidth required for displays. Using a single wire for display and data just got a slightly less good idea.
No, I'm very positive towards new technology that improves and/or simplifies things.
USB-C is a much-needed replacement for the Micro USB connectors on phones, which were fragile, fiddly and couldn't support USB-3 speeds. Apple should have switched the iPhone 7 to it.
I'm negative towards new technology that creates additional complexity, expense and confusion without any real payoff. USB-C on anything larger than a tablet, or maybe a 12" MB, is a pointless pain in the backside when everything you use already has USB-A or DisplayPort connections.
No reason that Thunderbolt 3 couldn't have stuck with MiniDP connectors, and we could all have used our existing MiniDP display dongles. Even USB 3.1g2 runs just fine over USB-A connectors (several PC motherboards have red 3.1g2 A-connectors) - and I don't see much support for 3.1g2 on TB3/USB-C hubs/docks yet anyway.
Not including DisplayPort 1.3/1.4 support was an epic fail, so USB-C/TB3 aren't brilliant at supporting new, higher-res displays: USB-C can't support dual 4k@60Hz displays, so it is DOA as a multi-display docking station; TB3 still needs a MST kludge to display 5k (it just combines two virtual cables into one) and a 5k display uses over half the bandwidth of a TB3 link (which is bound to effect latency)
If USB-C could have ushered in an era of one connector, one cable, one port, one protocol stack then I'd have welcomed it with open arms. Instead, it grinds to a halt at the "one connector" part and ends in a confusing combinatorial explosion of different cables and port capabilities.
And then time goes by and nobody uses those ports anymore. What do you call the new ones that come with say, USB-C?
Docking stations are meant to connect a plethora of peripherals with 1 connector to your notebook. What ports are used on the docking station and how many does not play any role whatsoever. These docking stations are mainly targeted at business users that only care about being able to connect all those peripherals because it saves them time and it is more convenient.
The fact that current docking stations can bring those old connections to the 2016/2017 MBP is no more than a side effect.
For the same reason many cars aren't electric. It's still all relatively new. The current docking stations are first generation products. You even need to have a specific firmware version for the Thunderbolt controller and install drivers when running Windows. Both Apple, Microsoft and even Linux are currently working on Thunderbolt and USB-C support so we no longer need all this. Apple has started with 10.12.5 (it comes with a lot of changes) and continues with 10.13. Microsoft is doing the same with Windows 10 and its upcoming update. Linux is behind them.
As for manufacturers, it simply is cheaper to change the Thunderbolt interface than to come up with something entirely new. If you have looked at these docks you'd have seen that they all use the same design with some expanding on it. This is just the reference design from Intel. None of the manufactures have created their own, they simply went with off the shelf PCBs.
Sure, who is going to notice the difference between 5Gbps and 22Gbps when they plug in their external SSD...
If you want a fast connection then you go fast. You don't go USB3.0 with a pathetic 5Gbps connection which is even slower than SATA3 but you go with something that actually can run at PCIe speeds. The point does still stand: it may be slower but it still means a working product. There are quite a lot of situations where this means a lot.
I know most people will have that because they simply connect the supplied cable. The "issue" you were trying to raise just doesn't exist in the real world.
Really, if you don't even know that none of the Apple power adapters have ever been more than 85W then this discussion is clearly way above your head.
USB-C and TB3 are capable of 100W, the Mag Safe maybe is but the fact still is that none of the Apple power adapters have outputted more than 85W. If you wanted that you had to use 3rd party power adapters and then you'd run into the fact that Mag Safe is a proprietary port which Apple actively protected. They went after anyone using it. USB-C is a godsend because now we are not limited to Apple power adapters. When other parties want to make a power brick that does 100W and they can and we Apple users can use them. The only issue is that Apple still designed the MBP to not surpass the 85W. That's why you even see stories from people with the MBP with Mag Safe that their battery life went down when the notebook was under high load AND they had it connected to the power adapter.
You just proofed it to be true since the list included only passive or active cables
That assumption would be wrong. It all depends on the material used, not the amount of Watts. I have a small 0.5m TB3 cable which is stiffer than the 2m version. That 2m version is far suppler than the USB2.0 cable from my mechanical keyboard. The TB3 cables also don't vary in thickness. Ordinary USB-C cables might be a teensy bit thinner but most are just as thick as the TB3 ones. There just isn't that much difference if any difference at all.
As you've just proofed yourself that is not correct at all. It is simply in the naming of the cable already. If you can't read that then I'd say you have bigger issues than the cable being the right one or not. Or as you put it:
I know that this is limited by the display due to the way they designed it. It is NOT a limitation of USB-C or the cable they supply with the display.
Nope, that's not how it works. It doesn't use "high-speed data lanes" but it uses the alternate mode lanes. As VESA mentioned you don't need to use all 4 of them to output 4k@60Hz, you can use less lanes too. There are implementations that do use all 4 alternate mode lanes for DisplayPort.
The daisy chain option isn't available on all Thunderbolt devices and it is perfectly fine to connect your super-fast 40Gbps TB3 peripherals to the same controller as the 5k display. Each TB3 controller has 2 ports that are both capable of 40Gbps max each. Or put differently: a TB3 controller is capable of 80Gbps max. The only thing you wouldn't want to do is daisy chain the 5k display because daisy chaining means sharing that 40Gbps max bandwidth between all devices in the chain.
Then you are not doing Thunderbolt any justice. TB3 also adds USB 3.1 Gen 2, power, USB-PD, ethernet (max 10Gbps iirc) and 2 DisplayPort streams instead of 1. There aren't that many 5k displays around (3: one from Dell, one from LG and the Apple iMac), 4k displays are not that many around either (but a lot more than 5k). All these displays are quite expensive and people have been complaining about it for ages.
Which is fine if you had actual knowledge on the subject and made strong arguments here. The arguments you put forth are weak and some do not even reflect the real world. Not knowing the standards, having no knowledge of engineering and yet ranting about them does not help either. It all just comes across as rather desperate. Especially since you keep on ignoring the many examples that can be found on the forums here and comments on the Microsoft Surface Laptop (number 1 complaint: there is no USB-C...).
We'll see what the manufacturers call them when they arrive, but I'd assume that a box that shared one USB-C "in" between several USB-C "outs" would be called a "hub" just like USB-A "hubs". What a TB3 version - which didn't share a USB-C connection but actually added extra USB-C controllers - would be called, we'll have to wait and see.
I'm sure the people currently weighing up the OWC TB3 dock with miniDisplayPort and SPDIF vs. the Caldigit TB Station 3 with eSATA and other comparisons will find that insight really helpful.
I know that when I had a "classic" docking station for a Sony laptop (the sort where the whole laptop clunked into a base) the fact that the dock had dual DVI ports while the laptop only had a single VGA was a pretty important factor...
You missed the sarcasm. Of course you'll notice the difference between USB 2 and USB 3.1 speeds if you plug your drive in with the "wrong" USB-C to USB-C cable.
In my real world, cables get unplugged, put into boxes and cupboards, taken out again and plugged in wherever they will fit (and, where others are involved, sometimes where they don't fit).
OK, lets take this slowly.
- The power supply for the 15" MBP is 87W. [Edit: and if you buy a spare, it doesn't come with a cable]
- USB-C and TB3 cables come with two power ratings: 3A/60W and 5A/100W (go read the specs).
- 87W is bigger than 60W (don't make me link to Sesame Street) so to deliver the full 87W to your MBP you need a 100W rated USB-C cable.
- If you plug in a 60W cable, USB-C's intelligent power delivery will cap the power at 60W so your computer will either charge more slowly or, under heavy load, start running down its battery. If the MBP only ever needed 60W they'd ship it with the smaller, lighter, cheaper 61W power supply that they already make for the smaller MBPs.
You just proofed it to be true since the list included only passive or active cables
Read the list. Again. Passive TB3 cables are not the same as USB-C cables - even if the only difference is Intel certification and the contents of the cable's ID chip. Then, both USB-C and passive Thunderbolt cables come in 60W and 100W flavours (again, differentiated by an ID chip) plus you have "charge cables" that lack any high-speed data whatsoever.
Unless what you're trying to say is that all you need are passive TB3 and active TB3 cables - which is true, but doesn't alter the fact that a range of other, more limited cables are being sold individually and bundled with peripherals.
No. Go read up on USB-C. USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 cables include ID chips that define their capabilities. That is quite apart from any active/passive distinction. (I think you can have a "lowest common denominator" cable with no chip).
Really. If you are going to claim superior knowledge, you shouldn't have written nonsense like:
...which shows that you really don't know what you are talking about.
A USB-C connector/cable has 4 high-speed data pairs for USB 3 data and one low-speed data pair for USB 2 plus various extra wires for configuration etc.
There are no "alternate mode lanes" - instead:
...and...
...so using all 4 high-speed lanes for DisplayPort only leaves the solitary USB 2.0 lane for data. Which is fine if you want to hang a mouse and keyboard off the display... maybe even a low-res webcam, but not much good for anything else.
Now the VESA article then goes on to talk about UHD + high-speed data and single-cable 5k + USB2, but that's all contingent on support for DisplayPort 1.3 or better. True, the cables and connectors will support that, but that's rather academic when there are neither computers nor displays that offer it. Certainly, Intel don't seem to be in a rush to support DP1.4 - which is awkward when TB3 computers rely on Intel controllers to drive their TB3/USB-C ports (even in USB-C alt mode).
AFAIK, the latest GPUs that Apple are using actually support DP 1.4 - its the Intel TB/USB-C controller that is the bottleneck. Now, if you want to split hairs and say that the USB-C specification isn't the problem, fine, but I'm more concerned with the practicality - which is that USB-C as currently implemented isn't much good for multi-peripheral docking if you want to use 4k or better displays.
...I suspect that this is one of the reasons Apple has been holding off on making Apple-branded 4k/5k/8k displays.
I think they'd be more inclined to use docking station because it is something that has been used for decades. It is how people have come to know these things. Suddenly calling it differently might have a negative effect which is why I doubt they'll do it.
You mean USB. USB-C controllers do not exist because USB-C is only a connector and a cable.
And yet both are called a docking station. Heck, if all your peripherals are USB-A and you use a simple USB-A hub to connect to your notebook than even that can be called a docking station. It's just a description of what the device does.
Sarcasm doesn't work on forums. The only thing you will notice is speed but you can still get to the data because the drive still works.
And in anybody else's real world people are simply too lazy to do so. They keep the cables connected to the devices themselves because they are going to use it in the future anyway. Why would they want to remove it?
Ok, but let's start by reading what comes in the box with the MacBook Pro...a charging cable and power adapter. Not to mention that people have already been using 60W MagSafe power adapters to charge their 15" MBP because they forgot their own power adapter. Works fine, they get the MBP charged albeit slowly. So how is the above even an issue?
It would also be nice if you wouldn't simply ignore the entire point: the fact that there never has been a power adapter by Apple capable of doing more than 85W supplied with MacBook Pro machines capable of pulling more than 85W and thus depleting the battery. It's a question asked many times on the forums here. USB-C hasn't changed a single thing here.
The list says active and passive. Period. USB-C and passive Thunderbolt cables are the same thing.
You almost got it. The entire point here is the same as with the USB2.0 vs USB3.1 speeds: things will work, just not at the full capability. Over time the differences we have now will fade away because everything uses USB-C. For the average consumer the only thing that matters is whether or not it works. They really don't care nor understand USB2.0 and USB3.1.
Since it is the standard that speaks of passive and active and not me, I'm afraid it is you who needs to do the reading on it. And while you are at it, do read up on USB in general. And DisplayPort. And DVI/HDMI. All of them are passive and all of them have ID chips so the computer can figure out what the device on the other end of the cable is and use the appropriate driver (and in case of Windows: install it when it isn't there).
No it just shows that you haven't got the foggiest of what I did
You finally started reading up on things and using technical arguments. Keep this going, you are on the right track!Ah yes, but have you read what VESA said properly and what the idea is behind the USB-C design?
There is a hint in there...
And what where the limitations of Thunderbolt 1 and 2 again?
The above hasn't got anything to do with USB-C, it's basically the protocol that is support on the other end of the cable.You are not seeing the fact that with USB-C the cable is leaving the equation. Previously you had to research what both ends of the cable require and then do the same research on the cable. Try guessing the connector from the description a non-techy makes of a connector. With USB-C the only thing that matters is what the other side of the cable is supporting/requiring, something that will always be important unless we have no progress at all.
Try not to look at your own use cases so much but more at things in general. There aren't that many people trying to connect multiple displays, 4k displays and so on. These are very expensive things that most consumers don't have money for. Even in businesses you won't find them on a grand scale for the very same reason. There simply aren't that many use cases where spending this much money on hardware makes sense. A lot of them are perfectly fine with the functionality offered by Thunderbolt 1 docking stations. For Macs, Thunderbolt 3 only adds the power adapter thing.
So what do you call the chip that drives a USB-C port, handles all the switching between the various alt modes and power supply modes etc? You could sort of say it "controls" the USB port?
And, no, USB C is not "only a connector and a cable" - it is a connector, a cable and a set of specifications that define how that connector and cable should behave. That last bit is only as good as its implementation in silicon (most of which also include the USB 3.1 controller part).
You don't have a point - you have a nonsense "Chewbacca defense" red herring that has nothing to do with the argument, which is that a 60W USB-C cable can't supply 85W to a MacBook Pro that needs it - and the only separate 85W capable cable on the Apple store is a "charge cable" that won't carry high speed data.
Well then, I suggest you tell that to Apple, Belkin etc. who are selling them as different things. At best, that passive USB-C cable is untested with TB3 and might not be up to snuff. Potentially, if the TB controller checks the cable ID chip to see if it is a thunderbolt certified cable, it just won't work. I have no means of testing this at the moment (and it could change overnight with a firmware update).
In any case, you're still ignoring the multiple types of USB-C cable (not mentioning Thunderbolt) with different data rates (USB 2/5Gbps USB 3.1g1/10Gbps USB 3.1g2) and max power delivery set out in black and white in the spec.
Sorry, but a 10Gbps USB 3.1g2 device throttled to 408Mbps USB 2, or a display that doesn't display, or a charger that can't keep your battery charged during intensive work doesn't meet my criteria for "works".
No, I'm just finding citations to double-check and support what I already know. Maybe you should try reading up on the technicalities before posting nonsense like "Nope, that's not how it works. It doesn't use "high-speed data lanes" but it uses the alternate mode lanes."
Yeah - I'm sure that the future will be rosy when DisplayPort 1.3 is supported on USB-C ports that actually exist in real computers... (which, for Mac users, is probably going to mean waiting for Thunderbolt 4 and a couple of processor generations down the line for DP1.3/1.4 support from Intel).
OK, so you really don't understand what "active", "passive" and "ID chip" mean in this context.
DisplayPort/DVI/HDMI have a Device ID (EDID) info built into the display - not the cable - so that the computer can identify what resolutions/frequencies etc. it supports. USB-C, however, features an ID chip built into the cable that identifies the data rates, protocols, power delivery levels etc. that the cable can support - regardless of what it is plugged into.
However, the USB-C cable ID chip has nothing to do with the distinction between active vs. passive Thunderbolt 3 cables:
Active Thunderbolt 3 cables - just like TB 1 & 2 cables - contain a "transceiver" chip in the plug at each end that drives the 4 high-speed data lanes in the cable to enable faster data rates over longer cables. That's also why they can't support USB 3.1 - the transceiver makes the high-speed data lanes Thunderbolt only, even when plugged into a USB 3 device, just leaving the single USB 2 lane.
Passive TB3 cables are a new thing for TB3, and don't have the transceiver chips. They do - as far as I know - have the USB-C ID chip, which will mark them out as passive Thunderbolt cables.
I'm not "seeing that fact" because of a ton of pesky evidence that proves it to be nonsense - like the actual USB-C specs that actually list the multiple permutations of cable types, and the actual existence of at least 4 different types of USB-C/TB3 cable in the Apple Store alone... and that's just in the early days of USB C!
Sure, there are multiple types and grades of DisplayPort cable, HDMI cable, Ethernet cable etc. but at least they accumulated slowly as the standards evolved. USB-C has hit the ground running with 5-6 different cable types... what's it going to be like when we have USB 3.3, Thunderbolt 4 etc?
Right. Got it. I'm the only person in the world with such an exotic thing as a 4k display. Can't imagine how it got on the shelf of my local PC superstore for under £500.
NB: that was sarcasm.