Working Toward a Universal Power Brick For Laptops

An anonymous reader links to PC Authority with some hopeful news about untangling a persistent annoyance for laptop users — namely, the myriad power supplies called for by laptop makers: "'On a PC, an ATX power supply for example will screw into certain mounting holes, have a maximum size and shape, and will take a standard 3-pin "kettle cord" for incoming power. If it complies with these standards, the PSU will be able to bolt into any manufacturer's ATX case.' Laptop design, on the other hand, involves cramming a PC into a tiny chassis, which usually has its own thermal design and power distribution requirements. This has led to the somewhat bizarre situation where every manufacturer has its own laptop power supply design. It now appears that some of the major players in laptops are getting together to work on a standardized laptop power supply design. Not only are big players involved, but the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has created a team to work on the power supply standard."

Comments

good.

[B5_geek]

Its about fracking time.

Hey industry (Sony I am looking at you) repeat after me:

Open standards help EVERYBODY!

Re:good.

[Yvan256]

That's what we said about 20 years ago when we imagined the "connector of the future", which would allow you to drop the serial, parallel, centronic and other various connectors for a single one. A single connector for your keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, external drives, etc.

And then USB appeared. No longer did we have to mess with dozens of types of connectors! We only have to care about USB, USB3, FireWire400, FireWire800, eSATA, VGA, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPo... oh wait.

Re:good.

[phoenix321]

USB1,2,3 are pretty compatible. In one way only for USB3, but not totally different.

FW400,800 are also compatible enough.

eSATA is probably more of a niche product. Probably no one has this on their must-have!!1! list. It's marginally faster than USB2 for external drives only and few drives can steadily saturate a USB2 link at all. Until I'm not saying 480Mbps are enough for everyone, but enough to stop caring *that* much until SSDs become cheap enough to be an external commodity drive.

VGA is simply kept in a zombie state by ignorant users and overcautious companies. Use cases are respectively "I don't see any difference between analog and digital video and that VGA-only TFT was 0,10 EUR cheaper" and "My laptop must work with the most ancient projectors, the most ancient of cabling and the most ancient of users. Therefore VGA is a must".

DVI and HDMI are interchangeabled with an adapter available at 1000 eBay shops for less than 5 EUR incl. shipping. They're still gold plated, though.

DisplayPort are electrically incompatible to DVI and HDMI, but no one notices, since the video cards adapt to it. Apple fans will probably mod me down to hell, but DisplayPort is the reinvention of the wheel. A sleek and stylish wheel of course, and we totally, absolutely needed another connector for digital video that is electrically incompatible with DVI and HDMI. Since we only had 2 digital video standards to choose from. Maybe one of our Appolytes can enlighten me, but to me, it has no substantial advantages over HDMI.

Looking at the rest of the connectors on this Thinkpad, I spot 1 probably required Gb Ethernet port, 1 zombie Modem port that, since 3G internet, is probably never be used or needed again and 2 analog audio connectors in and out, that are as of yet indispensable.

Ethernet will probably survive for several decades, since no one will want to replace all those hectoparsecs of wiring or carry around a USB-Ethernet dongle. Paranoid companies will not switch to even terabit WiFi, ever, since it's all so terribly insecure even with 16kB long keys.

VGA will die in methusalem companies out 1 decade AFTER Internet Explorer 6. Since, you know, you could on one day meet the first data projector ever built and must connect to it lest the company be damned.

FireWire is dying. Zealots are drawing their knives now, but it adds nothing to USB2 or 3.

Same for eSATA.

DisplayPort, Mini-DisplayPort, Micro-DisplayPort and DisplayPort9000 will probably survive with Apple hardware because of reason no. 1337.

HTC, Apple or Sony could go on to invent anther standard for micro-, mini- and pico-USB, And micro-, mini- and pico-HDMI, maybe each in two versions called A and B.

The MAFIAA will come up with a new copy protection scheme and cabling somewhere in the next decade, but that cannot stop the unification wave. They have HDMI with Gigabit Ethernet now, which is probably more versatile than sliced bread, but it still will have to compete with USB video.

But in the end, the future has fewer connectors. One for power, one for everything else. USB is as Turing-complete as connectors go, if you excuse this analogy. Everything can then easier be adapted to use them instead of inventing a new format. With mass production lowering marginal costs to fractions of a cent, nothing exists that cannot be connected by some protocol driven over USB.

Non-standard form-factors = planned obsolescence

[couchslug]

Laptop makers have NO REASON to standardize.
The ideal consumer product is shitcanned at point of purchase by a delighted customer (toilet paper comes to mind).

Desktop PC form-factors made maintenance, part sourcing, and upgrading easy, but didn't help kill off old PCs.

Notebook makers OTOH can count on the failure of key components such as batteries to render their products "beyond economical repair". Combine that with low prices and crap build quality, and you have the recipe for repeat sales. (Good to foster performance upgrades, not so good for economy and ease of maintenance.)

Before you get too excited.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Here's a huge grain of salt:

According to Taiwanese industry news site Digitimes these kinds of solutions may soon be superseded. It now appears that some of the major players in laptops are getting together to work on a standardized laptop power supply design. This includes the big branded players ASUS and Acer as well as the OEM manufacturers like Quanta and Compal, which are responsible for a lot of the non-brand name laptops available on the market.

Basically it's just four Taiwanese OEM manufacturers (Yes ASUS is just as much an OEM as a brand name) trying to lessen the cost of manufacture by making the laptop power supply a commodity item. While this would be a good thing for all involved, I wouldn't start rejoicing until Foxconn expresses an interest and of course Dell, Apple, Lenovo, etc.