14 DAY TRIAL // A few hours ago, Apple took the stage at its Spring Forward event, where it announced its highly anticipated Apple Watch and a bunch of other novelties.
One of them was the new MacBook with Retina display, a laptop made insanely thin and light. But the thing is the new MacBook comes with only 2 ports. One will be housing your headphones (standard headphone jack for mic-in), while the other represents a new standard.
The USB-C is a universal-type of port which lets users juice up their notebook and streams video out / brings peripherals in.
Apple is an early adopter of USB-C
The single port will not handle only power but the VGA and HDMI, DisplayPort and USB data as well. The trick is, you’ll also need a set of adapters in order to be able to do so.
Apple is naturally selling those and they won’t come too cheap. If you’re one of those people who like to plug their iPhone into their MacBook, then you’re going to need a converter cord. The USB-C to USB Adapter will let you do that if you pay $19 / €18 for it.
Paying $79 / €73 for the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter will allow you to tap into connectivity to a single USB 3.1 Gen 1, USB-C and full-sized HDMI (out).
For the same amount of money, the USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter will bring you USB 3.1 Gen 1, USB-C and VGA (out) ports.
There’s also the Power Adapter Extension Cable which is offered for $19 / €18, while the 29W USB-C Power Adapter will take $49 / €45 out of your pocket, which you’ll need to combine with a new USB-C charging cable ($29 / €27). Users can use the same cable to connect and share info between two USB-C machines.
The accessories don’t come too cheap, especially considering that the new Macbook will start at a chunky $1,299 / €1,119 a pop.
USB Type C standard represents the future, so one should expect more and more devices to come equipped with it. But Apple adopting this standard early comes at a price, in the form of adapters which put a damper on the principle of portability related to the super thin and light new MacBook.
USB Type C is also an open standard, so it’s only a matter of time before third-party companies start offering cheaper adapters and dongle alternatives.
