Laptop purchases - do you reject USB-C charging only devices

[Ditto]

For the last year or 2 we have been purchasing Dell laptops. Mine for example is an Latitude 3550, 16MB RAM 512SSD i7-1355U. It has a traditional A/C connector and I have had no issues. Several colleagues have slightly lower specs and I believe may only have USB-C charging options. Following more than one failure of these flimsy connectors, those up the feeding chain are now considering alternative devices. Due to 'internal connections' he is persuaded to look at HP Ryzen laptops - e.g. HP Probook 455 G10, same screen size, RAM and SSD but Ryzen 5 7530U. I don't have a problem of Dell over HP, but I can already beat the 'contact' price which allegedly contains a charity discount - ebuyer do it for £40 less.

 

The question is, do you avoid USB-C only devices like the plague. These machines are intended for use by adult colleagues, but they don't seem to be too far behind the ability of Y9 boys to inflict damage!

[psydii]

Nope, all in on USB charging staff and student laptops since 2018.

 

Only problem at any scale was on some laptops that were slightly too big for the older trolley and the usb ports did get damaged. This was solved by re-routing cables (and hasn't been an issue since early 2019)

 

We've got hundreds of usb-c (charging)  only devices and we've retired hundred at this point now too, and usb-c only charging is (almost) never a problem.*

 

USB-C USB3.2/DP-AltMode on the other hand was a nightmare (2018/19/20 era) I have not revisited recently. Thankfully everything had HDMI ports too, so we could work around that. I'm told if you don't have older hardware in circulaton this problem is a thing of the past.

 

* we see more smashed/dropped/stolen laptops than ones with damaged/failed usb-c charging ports. It does happen occasionally.  That said sometimes the usb/pd controller might crash and then a reset button/key combo is requried to get things working again, we probably see 0.25% of devices with that per week and again looking at the helpdesk it seems to have been dropping off as we retire out the oldest machines.

Edited June 23, 2025 by psydii

[itskdog]

We're heading into the USB-C one-port-to-rule-them-all future, with the EU's USB-C requirement extending to laptops from April, and Microsoft's new device certification rules requiring all USB-C ports on laptops to be able to use power, data, and video.

 

I'm willing to bet that there won't be a way to avoid it in 5-10 years' time, as manufacturers start deciding to abandon their proprietary chargers to reduce costs from having two charging ports.

[ITGuyNW]

We've started moving towards using USB-C for charging. Like others have said, its the future (now).

 

It'll get to a point where the only port on a laptop will be a single USB-C port and everyone will have to carry around multi port adapters that pass through power too.

[TechMonkey]

As others have said, actively the opposite to what you are asking, embracing USB-C and running with it.  We are ensuring we have either very good extended warranties or even getting third Party accidental damage for the devices.  Makes the device cost slightly more but saves money in the long run. This would cover broken USB-C ports. But, again, as others have said I've not seen many broken ports.

[psydii]

1 minute ago, ITGuyNW said:

It'll get to a point where the only port on a laptop will be a single USB-C port and everyone will have to carry around multi port adapters that pass through power too.

Apple tried that. It did not go well (for their laptop). 

 

 

[3s-gtech]

USB C only, we've done plenty of warranty returns where they've stopped charging due to the crappy ports (full motherboard replacement!)

 

Some of them can charge through more than one of the C ports which helps, until that dies too!

 

Generally, they're okay though really - we do have a couple of hundred.

[Ditto]

Thanks for the replies everyone. But, "Oh dear!, looks like trouble ahead". We've had a couple repaired, but that doesn't come cheap. One solution I just discovered is magnetic connectors. Effectively they separate under pressure before damage is done, but you'd want to be really careful on the electrical safety aspect!

[3s-gtech]

I've heard about those. The hefty voltages and currents that can be delivered suggest you'd want really good ones, not AliExpress-sort-by-cheapest-first.

[Olliedawg]

99% USB C here

[PotNoodleTech]

1:1 chromebooks so all USB C here.  Sadly they are not as resiliant as the good old big dell round barrel connectors we used to use back in the old days.

 

That's 20 years of  progress for you!  A physically worse weaker connector and you WILL LIKE IT OR ELSE.

[Ditto]

Well, here's a turn up! It appears I misunderstood the situation - or more accurately it was not made clear to me🙃. The charging port issue has been with the older 'barrel' connectors, not USB-C - in fact the report is that USB-C charge interface had been more robust. The advantages of standardised power blocks/leads seems to be winning though! So, a bit of the opposite of the opposite of where I started 😂. And, the HP contact is a proper contract manager for charities. It was just that an internal contact allowed a fast-track referral allowing by-passing front line sales teams. So we look to have gone full circle from HP to Dell and back to HP. In reality is was because Dell just did not offer a clear an honest discount procedure for charities. As an aside, I'm writing all this on my personal Lenovo 14" x220, i7 vPro, Enhanced Experience 2.0 RapidDrive. 14 years old, I've had it 9, it's still going strong, still quick enough, the original battery lasted years, 2 replacements have been junk! Win 10 - Win 11 MS plans are it's biggest risk to continuing on.

[3s-gtech]

Some of the recent Dells with a barrel connector can also charge via USB-C. I’ve not tested with many, mind.

[machy]

14 hours ago, 3s-gtech said:

Some of the recent Dells with a barrel connector can also charge via USB-C. I’ve not tested with many, mind.

Have several (latitude) models here and they all charge over both USB-C And Barrell 

 

[DalekSec]

We are USB-C only (well TB3 atleast), as we use USB-C monitors with docks built in.

 

We always make sure the laptops have atleast 2 USB-C ports incase one fails, we use ThinkPads and a lot of models always seem to have atleast 1 port that fails! 

[mavhc]

Yeah, hopefully we can have at least 2 usb-c that have all the features, just because they're there doesn't mean they can do power, or display port, etc

[ovenchips]

We're heading towards all USB-C but not there yet sadly - I've had 0 USB-C charging failures so far from our existing fleet + newer chromebooks, but have had a fair few of the smaller dell barrel jacks fail on us, usually from the pin in the middle giving up and breaking off. It's nice that usually it's a separate part that can easily be replaced, but they aren't half expensive whenever I look!

[ITGuyNW]

21 hours ago, psydii said:

Apple tried that. It did not go well (for their laptop). 

 

 

The latest HP laptops we're getting in now don't have ethernet and they're slowly just reducing the amount on the sides.

[TwistedHelixis]

Quote

It's nice that usually it's a separate part that can easily be replaced

 

I had no idea you could replace the end of the Dell laptop charger. Cheers

[ovenchips]

4 minutes ago, TwistedHelixis said:

 

I had no idea you could replace the end of the Dell laptop charger. Cheers

The internal charging port, not the barrel on the charger itself - apologies!

[chazzy2501]

34 hp probook 440 g7, in 5 years only 1 broken usbc port. (probook does have a dc charge port but on-site we have usbc docks.)  We have had DP-alt issues but cleaning solves them.

 

My new Lenovo Thinkpads have 2 usbc ports that both allow charging, I think that is enough margin. 

[TwistedHelixis]

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but all our usb c Chromebooks have 2 charger ports, so when one dies, it can be charged from the other side, which is very handy.