Thunderbolt has really changed the industry as a user can now use GPU’s which portable and user can carry around anywhere. Thunderbolt USB C also adds charging, display output, faster data transfer and much more.
USB latest iteration of USB 3.2 which announced earlier this week but recently the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) has today announced USB 4, as USB 4 will bring 40 Gbps over the 20 Gbps as compared with the current version of USB. This may sound similar to Thunderbolt 3 offers way back in 2015, but the mass adoption of Thunderbolt 3 will happen in 2017. Now we can find lots of device support Thunderbolt 3 ranging from Apple’s MacBook Pro, Razer’s Blade and much more. Dongle life also now coming to an end as USB-C is now becoming the norm for recent gen. devices we can find many hard drives, display cables like HDMI, Display-port whose input is USB-C.
Power becoming more powerful
USB 4 will able to connect two 4K displays simultaneously without any issues as we can see in Thunderbolt 3. USB 4 is capable of delivering 100W of power which really able to run most of the devices. You can also attach a single 5K display with this cable.
USB 4 tries to bring 3-year-old technology for mainstream as Thunderbolt 3 device cost more than normal USB C devices we have to see how companies will bring this technology more cheaper than Thunderbolt 3.
USB-IF also trying to standardize the latest USB technology for more area possible which includes features such as display out and audio out (although the exact features are yet to be determined).
Naming becoming more confusing
This simplification sounds like a sensible approach, but the problem is that USB is an open standard, and so the implementation of any of these recommendations will be voluntary. Companies will be able to have their devices certified by the USB-IF, but this is entirely optional. The spokesperson of the organization said they ever consider imposing mandatory requirements on their manufacturing partners, they suggested it would be almost impossible to police because of the number of companies using USB.
Previous gen. USB Type A ports have a color marker which represents the gen. of the USB but Type C has made it even worse as we won’t able to understand Type C version pretty easily, companies also try to name the device with speed but this convention not looks much easy.
USB 4 tries to close the gap between Thunderbolt 3, the latest iteration of Thunderbolt is yet not rumored about but we may see a new feature added to Thunderbolt soon. USB 4 might have the same specs, but Intel provides other Thunderbolt 3 services that go beyond the hardware itself.
The publication of the full USB 4 specification is currently due to arrive in the second half of this year, after which point the USB-IF said that it expects it to be another year and a half before manufacturers start producing devices. So there is some chance for the Thunderbolt 3 to expand its region or bring some latest changes to the device so that people can able to benefit more advanced technology.
