January 1, 2025, is the date for mobile phones and other small electronic devices. Saudi Arabia announced a law to standardize charging ports for all...
There is a second stage, starting from April 1, 2026, which will apply to laptops and portable computers.
I hate this type of legislation. Almost zero USB chargers can power a laptop. But politicians don’t know that. So this won’t reduce the number of chargers. Unless they’re requiring all charges support the full PD spec?
Leave standards to experts.
Edited: Yes i fucking know many laptops use USB-C power now. You’re not smart in telling me this. I mean that most USB chargers are cheap crap that can’t put out enough power to run a laptop. Not all USB is the same.
They don’t mean laptops have to run off of a phone charger. It says they need USB-C charging ports. Many laptops already run power via a USB-C slot right now.
Yeah, but that only works when your device uses less than 100W, because that’s what USB-C is currently rated for. Gaming laptops can easily use two or three times that amount while simply idling on the desktop. Once you start looking at GPU/CPU power requirements and active cooling, the power consumption quickly stacks up.
These devices usually have IEC power bricks with a fat barrel connector, because that’s what they require to be able to get enough wattage into the device. Requiring them to charge via USB-C is going to have them using two or three USB-C ports just to break even and avoid losing power. The power adapter would look like some weird fan-out adapter with one IEC power cable going in and three or four USB-C cables on the other end.
I’m laughing at the idea of a device having three or four USB-C ports, and not being able to use any of them for anything except charging.
USB-C has already standardized 240W charging. Apple already ships a 140W brick with their laptops since like a year or two ago, and Framework is shipping a 180W brick later this year.
Okay but that doesn’t change the fact that many laptops have a USB-C port for charging now.
Of course, we’ve now learned that OP meant something a lot dumber about using phone chargers for laptops but this is a whole other imaginary situation OP has going on in their head.
So - like I know that many laptops charge from USB-C right now. The one I’m typing on does. Why do people seem to think they’re smart in pointing this out?
So then what’s the point? People will still be buying cheap USB chargers because, well, they’re cheap. And they’ll have the expensive one for their laptop. Problem…solved?
Nobody thinks they’re smart in pointing it out, and it’s weird that that’s the impression you’re getting. If anything, we’re pointing it out because your comment reads like you have no idea that USB-C charging ports already exist. If you’re looking for someone to blame, look inwards. It’s your own imprecise language and poor writing skills that got you here.
But your new concern isn’t any better. It’s still as inane as what you poorly expressed it the first time. People having been using chargers for decades, and your argument is that all this knowledge will magically be erased because they mandated USB-C on devices causing people to try to charge their laptops, which come with dedicated chargers, with cheap $3 ones off Ali Express? How? Why? What different effect would a regulation like this coming from tech experts instead of politicians have when the problem appears to be suddenly-induced mass forgetfulness of how electricity works? This doesn’t make any sense.
If people already see a USB-C charging port on their laptop, know it came with a dedicated charger, and have access to a cheap USB-C phone charger, then why would they only think to try them together after this regulation passes and not right this very second? What does it even matter if they try? It doesn’t harm anything, it just doesn’t charge or power the device.
That’s what everybody did at first. It gave us a different connector for each device. After a few decades, there are still competing standards. Either the experts are incompetent, or the business environment they’re in doesn’t incentivize single standards.
Or, and go with me here, it’s a non-issue? Like it’s fine to have multiple standards for different uses?
All they did was standardize the shape of the connector. Not the voltage, power output, etc. So you’ll still have multiple competing standards and it will be a bit more confusing as “not all USB chargers will be able to power your laptop.”
When I’m travelling, I can bring one single charger to charge my laptop, my phone, my tablet, my wireless earbuds, my flashlight, my powerbank, my e-Reader and my bike pump.
In your world I would have to bring eight different chargers. That’s a pretty big issue to me.
Or, it’s totally not a non-issue? Like, I remember the time when you had to carry around a fucking proprietary charger for every single fucking device?
Yeah, no shit, you can’t power your megaultragaminglaptop4000™ with a 5 V 500 mA charger. Whodathunk.
Like, I remember the time when you had to carry around a fucking proprietary charger for every single fucking device?
Oh yes - we refer to those days as “the dark days”. I’m still scarred for life for having to have multiple chargers.
You can have “a preferred state” without “passing a law enforcing it.” The world is marching towards USB as it is. Passing a law for this was stupid and useless.
I dunno about the SA law but the EU law mandates USB-PD support.
Of course they can’t mandate the wattage level since every device will have different wattage needs, but I can use my $35 100W USB-PD charger with any USB device I have at home just fine
It does not say that it has to ONLY have UBC-C charging, my laptop will charge from USB-C and the dedicated charging port. I wonder if that would be complaint.
It’s all part of the USB standard, there can be different “levels” of chargers. If I’m just travelling with my phone, I don’t want to have to bring a 240W charger. It would be way too expensive and also too big/heavy. The good thing is, if you have to bring a big charger anyway, you can also use it to charge your phone or your headphones. That’s what the standard is all about.
So then what problem has been solved? Ostensibly this was to reduce the number of chargers and cables. But that situation will still exist with this law. You may have some more convenience but… Is that worth passing a law over?
I don’t know exactly what the percentage of new laptops that can use USB-C charging is, but it’s a pretty large percentage. My Lenovo Yoga came with a USB-C charger and that’s all it uses for charging. That said, I actually do agree with you that this is not really a problem for laptops and IMHO it’s often a lot easier to fix/replace a broken DC barrel type charging port than a USB port on a laptop because a DC barrel generally just has 2 relatively large solder points. I’m a lot more nervous handling my laptop with a USB-C charging cable attached than I would be with a DC barrel. However, I’m in favor of legislation that reduces the number of proprietary port standards (like Lightning).
You people are missing the fucking point. Not all USB-C chargers are the same. It’s just the shape of the connector. There are many power delivery standards and not all will drive your laptop.
It would be so stupid if every USB-C charger was forced to deliver enough power for a laptop. They would have to be much bigger and also more expensive without offering any benefit when charging smaller items.
The good thing about USB is that my laptop charger can also charge my phone or my wireless earbuds, so when I’m travelling, I only have to bring the charger for the biggest device I’m using.
Not sure I get your complaint, most people will just use the charger their laptop comes with. With this legislation that charger would be a usb-c and therefore able to power most other devices so you’d only need to bring your laptop charger when you travel, I do this now with my Mac charger which works with my phone, switch, headphones, vape etc. , reducing the amount of chargers you need. Sure someone might lose their charger and buy a cheap one or just bring their phone charger and realize it doesn’t work, but that’s there problem for not researching and they’ll learn that they need a special charger for their laptop. We shouldn’t let a few idiots ruin things for everyone.
They’re adopting the standards created by the experts from the USB consortium, which is comprised of all the large electronics manufacturing companies. If they’re not expert enough then who is?
The experts know that ‘not all USB-C is the same’.
You pick up a $20 USB-C charger from Walgreens you think that’s going to run your nvidia 3080 laptop??
Can you currently buy anything that would power a 3080 laptop from Walgreens? Not sure what point you’re trying to make. They’re standardizing the port not the chargers or the cables.
How can you complain about the government forcing a single standard on us while also complaining that there’s too much variation in the market?
You also can’t use a $20 USB-C charger to power a refrigerator, but are you upset that they both use the same wall socket?
I read your edit and I get it now. The power output of different chargers are not the same. My phone charger is 15 W, and my laptop charger 65 W (or maybe 45 W? I forgot). Charging my laptop with my phone charger does not work.
Yes, there are USB-C chargers that are made for smaller devices and can’t charge a notebook. So what? The alternative would be going back to proprietary chargers that can only charge one specific model.
I have a 100W USB-C-charger in my car, I have one by my bed, one on my couch, one at my desk and one powerbank that can charge my notebook anywhere I go.
Going back to proprietary chargers would mean if my notebook breaks, I can throw all these chargers in the trash and buy a new set. How would that make anything better?
The alternative would be going back to proprietary chargers that can only charge one specific model.
I realize you’re exaggerating but all you’re doing is standardizing on size and shape of the connector. Not the power standards it supports. If your laptop needs 240W PD 3.0 and your car supports 100W QC3 you’re still out of business. If your laptop uses QC3 but needs 12v and the adapter only supports 9v you’re still out of business.
USB is not a standard. It is a collection of standards.
I have never had a 65W+ USB charger that had trouble charging any of my USB-C devices, including my notebook. Yes, USB has different standards, but most chargers support several different ones. Especially with third-party chargers, people want them to work with their device no matter what it is and USB makes it easy for manufacturers to offer that.
I hate this type of legislation. Almost zero USB chargers can power a laptop. But politicians don’t know that. So this won’t reduce the number of chargers. Unless they’re requiring all charges support the full PD spec?
Leave standards to experts.
Edited: Yes i fucking know many laptops use USB-C power now. You’re not smart in telling me this. I mean that most USB chargers are cheap crap that can’t put out enough power to run a laptop. Not all USB is the same.
They don’t mean laptops have to run off of a phone charger. It says they need USB-C charging ports. Many laptops already run power via a USB-C slot right now.
…and you can charge your phone with the laptop USB-C charger just fine.
Yeah, but that only works when your device uses less than 100W, because that’s what USB-C is currently rated for. Gaming laptops can easily use two or three times that amount while simply idling on the desktop. Once you start looking at GPU/CPU power requirements and active cooling, the power consumption quickly stacks up.
These devices usually have IEC power bricks with a fat barrel connector, because that’s what they require to be able to get enough wattage into the device. Requiring them to charge via USB-C is going to have them using two or three USB-C ports just to break even and avoid losing power. The power adapter would look like some weird fan-out adapter with one IEC power cable going in and three or four USB-C cables on the other end.
I’m laughing at the idea of a device having three or four USB-C ports, and not being able to use any of them for anything except charging.
USB-C has already standardized 240W charging. Apple already ships a 140W brick with their laptops since like a year or two ago, and Framework is shipping a 180W brick later this year.
Okay but that doesn’t change the fact that many laptops have a USB-C port for charging now.
Of course, we’ve now learned that OP meant something a lot dumber about using phone chargers for laptops but this is a whole other imaginary situation OP has going on in their head.
So - like I know that many laptops charge from USB-C right now. The one I’m typing on does. Why do people seem to think they’re smart in pointing this out?
So then what’s the point? People will still be buying cheap USB chargers because, well, they’re cheap. And they’ll have the expensive one for their laptop. Problem…solved?
Nobody thinks they’re smart in pointing it out, and it’s weird that that’s the impression you’re getting. If anything, we’re pointing it out because your comment reads like you have no idea that USB-C charging ports already exist. If you’re looking for someone to blame, look inwards. It’s your own imprecise language and poor writing skills that got you here.
But your new concern isn’t any better. It’s still as inane as what you poorly expressed it the first time. People having been using chargers for decades, and your argument is that all this knowledge will magically be erased because they mandated USB-C on devices causing people to try to charge their laptops, which come with dedicated chargers, with cheap $3 ones off Ali Express? How? Why? What different effect would a regulation like this coming from tech experts instead of politicians have when the problem appears to be suddenly-induced mass forgetfulness of how electricity works? This doesn’t make any sense.
If people already see a USB-C charging port on their laptop, know it came with a dedicated charger, and have access to a cheap USB-C phone charger, then why would they only think to try them together after this regulation passes and not right this very second? What does it even matter if they try? It doesn’t harm anything, it just doesn’t charge or power the device.
I charge my MacBook pro with a 40W Anker brick overnight. Works like a charm. Probably better for the device longevity too…
That’s what everybody did at first. It gave us a different connector for each device. After a few decades, there are still competing standards. Either the experts are incompetent, or the business environment they’re in doesn’t incentivize single standards.
This is the issue, you can squeeze more money out of your consumers if you lock them into an ecosystem an license every single 3rd party device.
Or, and go with me here, it’s a non-issue? Like it’s fine to have multiple standards for different uses?
All they did was standardize the shape of the connector. Not the voltage, power output, etc. So you’ll still have multiple competing standards and it will be a bit more confusing as “not all USB chargers will be able to power your laptop.”
When I’m travelling, I can bring one single charger to charge my laptop, my phone, my tablet, my wireless earbuds, my flashlight, my powerbank, my e-Reader and my bike pump.
In your world I would have to bring eight different chargers. That’s a pretty big issue to me.
Or, it’s totally not a non-issue? Like, I remember the time when you had to carry around a fucking proprietary charger for every single fucking device?
Yeah, no shit, you can’t power your megaultragaminglaptop4000™ with a 5 V 500 mA charger. Whodathunk.
Oh yes - we refer to those days as “the dark days”. I’m still scarred for life for having to have multiple chargers.
You can have “a preferred state” without “passing a law enforcing it.” The world is marching towards USB as it is. Passing a law for this was stupid and useless.
I dunno about the SA law but the EU law mandates USB-PD support.
Of course they can’t mandate the wattage level since every device will have different wattage needs, but I can use my $35 100W USB-PD charger with any USB device I have at home just fine
It does not say that it has to ONLY have UBC-C charging, my laptop will charge from USB-C and the dedicated charging port. I wonder if that would be complaint.
I have 6 laptops that can charge from type-C, including from battery banks and the last “cell phone” charger I got (OnePlus 9).
???
Most laptops charge over USB C nowadays
What do you mean? My M1 MacBook charges just fine on USB-C. Do you mean that 1A USB chargers can’t do the job? Cause they can’t
yes - this is exactly what I mean. They’ve legislated the interface but not the standard.
It’s all part of the USB standard, there can be different “levels” of chargers. If I’m just travelling with my phone, I don’t want to have to bring a 240W charger. It would be way too expensive and also too big/heavy. The good thing is, if you have to bring a big charger anyway, you can also use it to charge your phone or your headphones. That’s what the standard is all about.
So then what problem has been solved? Ostensibly this was to reduce the number of chargers and cables. But that situation will still exist with this law. You may have some more convenience but… Is that worth passing a law over?
I don’t know exactly what the percentage of new laptops that can use USB-C charging is, but it’s a pretty large percentage. My Lenovo Yoga came with a USB-C charger and that’s all it uses for charging. That said, I actually do agree with you that this is not really a problem for laptops and IMHO it’s often a lot easier to fix/replace a broken DC barrel type charging port than a USB port on a laptop because a DC barrel generally just has 2 relatively large solder points. I’m a lot more nervous handling my laptop with a USB-C charging cable attached than I would be with a DC barrel. However, I’m in favor of legislation that reduces the number of proprietary port standards (like Lightning).
You people are missing the fucking point. Not all USB-C chargers are the same. It’s just the shape of the connector. There are many power delivery standards and not all will drive your laptop.
It would be so stupid if every USB-C charger was forced to deliver enough power for a laptop. They would have to be much bigger and also more expensive without offering any benefit when charging smaller items.
The good thing about USB is that my laptop charger can also charge my phone or my wireless earbuds, so when I’m travelling, I only have to bring the charger for the biggest device I’m using.
I run an M1 Macbook off USB-C daily.
Not sure I get your complaint, most people will just use the charger their laptop comes with. With this legislation that charger would be a usb-c and therefore able to power most other devices so you’d only need to bring your laptop charger when you travel, I do this now with my Mac charger which works with my phone, switch, headphones, vape etc. , reducing the amount of chargers you need. Sure someone might lose their charger and buy a cheap one or just bring their phone charger and realize it doesn’t work, but that’s there problem for not researching and they’ll learn that they need a special charger for their laptop. We shouldn’t let a few idiots ruin things for everyone.
They’re adopting the standards created by the experts from the USB consortium, which is comprised of all the large electronics manufacturing companies. If they’re not expert enough then who is?
The experts know that ‘not all USB-C is the same’. You pick up a $20 USB-C charger from Walgreens you think that’s going to run your nvidia 3080 laptop??
It doesn’t have to though?
Can you currently buy anything that would power a 3080 laptop from Walgreens? Not sure what point you’re trying to make. They’re standardizing the port not the chargers or the cables.
How can you complain about the government forcing a single standard on us while also complaining that there’s too much variation in the market?
You also can’t use a $20 USB-C charger to power a refrigerator, but are you upset that they both use the same wall socket?
My laptop charges only over usb-c
Good for you. You missed the point entirely but I’m proud of you and your laptop.
I read your edit and I get it now. The power output of different chargers are not the same. My phone charger is 15 W, and my laptop charger 65 W (or maybe 45 W? I forgot). Charging my laptop with my phone charger does not work.
Yes, there are USB-C chargers that are made for smaller devices and can’t charge a notebook. So what? The alternative would be going back to proprietary chargers that can only charge one specific model.
I have a 100W USB-C-charger in my car, I have one by my bed, one on my couch, one at my desk and one powerbank that can charge my notebook anywhere I go.
Going back to proprietary chargers would mean if my notebook breaks, I can throw all these chargers in the trash and buy a new set. How would that make anything better?
I realize you’re exaggerating but all you’re doing is standardizing on size and shape of the connector. Not the power standards it supports. If your laptop needs 240W PD 3.0 and your car supports 100W QC3 you’re still out of business. If your laptop uses QC3 but needs 12v and the adapter only supports 9v you’re still out of business.
USB is not a standard. It is a collection of standards.
I have never had a 65W+ USB charger that had trouble charging any of my USB-C devices, including my notebook. Yes, USB has different standards, but most chargers support several different ones. Especially with third-party chargers, people want them to work with their device no matter what it is and USB makes it easy for manufacturers to offer that.