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USB is a giant lie.

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The U in USB stands for universal,

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but with the confusing naming schemes, inconsistent port colors,

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and varying power delivery capacities, just saying something is USB

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feels about as universal as speaking Esperanto.

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And the infuriating thing is, it doesn't have to be this way.

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Take, for example, the issue with port colors, we just mentioned. For a while, things were relatively simple.

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The OG USB version 1.1 had white ports.

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The faster USB 2.0 used the color black, and once 3.0 rolled around,

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those ports usually got colored blue. That wasn't too hard to remember,

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especially since quite a bit of time passed between those three original revisions,

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but it didn't take long for things to get more complicated.

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We got teal for 10 gigabit per second USB 3.1,

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and red for 20 gigabit USB 3.2.

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There are also colors that often indicate that the port either supports fast charging or stays on

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when the rest of the system is powered down for charging purposes. These are usually warmer colors like yellow, orange, or red,

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so that red port on your PC might not actually be 20 gigabit.

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Then you have other colors that indicate support for some form of proprietary fast charging,

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such as purple for Huawei or green for Qualcomm.

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And you now have to re-memorize what color stands for what USB version

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since everything that isn't USB 2.0 or older

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has been rebranded as USB 3.2.

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What? The point here is that there's actually no standardization

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on anything to do with USB port colors. It's all just conventions

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that different hardware manufacturers may or may not follow.

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I mean, some companies just do whatever the heck they want for the sake of aesthetics,

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which you'll know if you've ever bought anything from Razer.

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But even if you've never thought much at all about the color of a USB connector,

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you can't exactly ignore its shape. Nowadays, we have the reversible USB-C connector,

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which has really taken off, but it's still a long way

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from displacing that old-school rectangular USB-A connector completely.

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And there's still plenty of confusion surrounding USB-C, with a popular misconception being that USB-C ports

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always support the same features or are always faster.

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This definitely is not the case,

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as many USB-C ports only support the older five gigabit spec.

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And making matters worse for those trying to sort out what USB-C products to buy,

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there are quite a few cheaply made, non-compliant USB-C cables out there

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that actually can damage your gadgets. And the really sad part is that even with all the things

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you have to watch out for with USB-C, it's arguably still better than the mishmash

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of other USB connector variants we've had in the past, including Mini, Micro, and this funky looking thing

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that came out when they literally just had to glom on more pins to support USB 3.0 speeds.

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And we haven't even gotten to the number one thing most of us use USB for these days, charging.

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We've actually done a full video on this that you can check out up here,

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but for now, we'll point out that there's a huge amount of variation in how quickly a port

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will charge up your phone or laptop. The USB power delivery standard does help somewhat,

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but there are still a few different flavors of it, and client devices can't all fully take advantage of it yet.

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But there's some good news on the horizon. As confusing as USB has been,

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the new USB 4 standard could make things simpler

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in the near future. It has to use USB-C and support a high speed connection

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of either 20 or 40 gigabits per second. And yes, there's an or in there,

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but combined with an increasing number of devices that support USB power delivery,

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I hope that USB does become more universal soon.

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But in the meantime, please be sure to read reviews or spec sheets of gadgets you're interested in

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and know exactly what their capabilities are before you buy.

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Otherwise, I just wasted all this time ranting for nothing.

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And nothing grinds my gears more than... Hey guys, thanks for watching this video.

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Go ahead and give it a like if you liked it. If you disliked it, you know what to do.

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And check out our other videos, comment below with video suggestions,

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