Silent_Buddha
Legend
OK, I recently got a Switch Alpha 12 as my current budget doesn't allow for a Surface Pro purchase this year. My previous Surface got murdered (an old industrial and very heavy Sun Micro 30" monitor fell on it).
Brief comments on the device. It's quite nice for the price (I got the i5 version for ~564 USD), but definitely isn't comparable to the Surface Pro line in terms of quality. Once you get your hands on one and start using it, the compromises made in order to reach a more affordable price point become very obvious. Some of the components being very cheap and worrisome (the kickstand for example seems to be made of a brittle plastic that is probably easy to break). Also, who thought not having a way to force power off a device was a good idea (the power button the Switch Alpha 12 doesn't support that). Which means when my device locked up coming out of hibernate, I had to just let it sit there until it ran out of battery power. Yay.
Anyway, the one bright spot was the inclusion of USB-C which supports display out, power delivery, etc. Basically it supports all the good things that you'd want USB-C to have.
And that's when the virtual nightmare began.
First the good.
So, after all of that, I really wish my current budget allowed me to just get another Surface Pro and skip USB-C all together. I really like the idea of USB-C, but the current implementations for the spec. leave a LOT to be desired. When you get an adapter that works, it's fantastic. The problem is getting to that point safely and without having to do research (sometimes a LOT of research) into finding an adapter that will work with your computing device.
Universal really isn't terribly universal. /sigh.
Regards,
SB
Brief comments on the device. It's quite nice for the price (I got the i5 version for ~564 USD), but definitely isn't comparable to the Surface Pro line in terms of quality. Once you get your hands on one and start using it, the compromises made in order to reach a more affordable price point become very obvious. Some of the components being very cheap and worrisome (the kickstand for example seems to be made of a brittle plastic that is probably easy to break). Also, who thought not having a way to force power off a device was a good idea (the power button the Switch Alpha 12 doesn't support that). Which means when my device locked up coming out of hibernate, I had to just let it sit there until it ran out of battery power. Yay.
Anyway, the one bright spot was the inclusion of USB-C which supports display out, power delivery, etc. Basically it supports all the good things that you'd want USB-C to have.
And that's when the virtual nightmare began.
First the good.
- If used like legacy USB connectors it mostly just works as expected.
- Power delivery. Support for much higher power delivery (PD) than legacy USB connectors is fantastic. Unfortunately, unlike legacy USB, not all USB-C PD adapters will work with all USB-C devices. Additionally if you get a PD adapter that provides more power than your device supports, it can potentially physically damage your device. Yay.
- It should be noted that to save costs, Acer includes a standard laptop (round peg) power charger with the Switch Alpha 12 instead of a USB-C power charger. Yay again. This is when I discovered the above issues when looking to purchase a USB-C device that includes PD. /sigh.
- Display out. Having USB-C capable of carrying the display out in addition to other typical USB duties should make having universal "docking" devices easy to find. Unfortunately not all display out adapters support all chipsets or CPUs. A USB-C display out device that support Skylake may or may not support Kaby Lake. Hell, a USB-C display out adapter that works with one Kaby Lake device may not work with another Kaby Lake device.
- Combined with PD issues, this makes it tricky to find a USB-C "dock" that is suitable for any given device. Yay.
- Having just a mini-DP or mini-HDMI output is a virtual paradise in comparison as any mini-DP/HDMI converter will just work without having to find one that hopefully will work as with USB-C display out adapters.
So, after all of that, I really wish my current budget allowed me to just get another Surface Pro and skip USB-C all together. I really like the idea of USB-C, but the current implementations for the spec. leave a LOT to be desired. When you get an adapter that works, it's fantastic. The problem is getting to that point safely and without having to do research (sometimes a LOT of research) into finding an adapter that will work with your computing device.
Universal really isn't terribly universal. /sigh.
Regards,
SB
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