USB-C is a single connector hiding seven protocols and a 250x speed spread, making cable and port selection a hidden performance trap.
Key Takeaways
USB 2 still ships at 480 Mb/s – the same speed since 2000 – including the cable Apple boxes with current hardware.
iPad Pro’s included cable runs 83x slower than the port it connects to.
MacBook Neo has two visually identical USB-C ports where one is 20x faster than the other.
USB-IF has renamed the 5 Gb/s standard four times since 2008, making product research actively confusing.
Recommended buys: Apple Thunderbolt 5 cable for Thunderbolt-equipped machines; Cable Matters 10 Gbps for everything else.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters confirm the identical-port trap is real in enterprise hardware too, with asymmetric charging ports sitting side by side on work laptops – a practical gotcha that even IT staff exploit as office pranks.
Notable Comments
@sandworm101: Confirms work laptops with two adjacent USB-C ports where only one charges; “an evil trick at the office is to move someone’s USB cable from one port to the other.”
