New Chromebook Pixels Use USB-C, Too

Ed Baig, writing for USA Today:

Arguably the most significant difference compared with the first-generation Pixel is the addition of two compact USB Type-C ports, conveniently placed on each side of the machine. USB Type-C can handle power, data and video, all in one.

It does seem convenient to be able to power the device from either side. Every once in a while you wind up in a spot where it’d be more comfortable to plug the adapter in on the other side of the laptop.

The timing seems like it can’t be a coincidence. There must have been some sort of backchannel embargo, allowing Apple to announce the new MacBook as the first USB-C-equipped laptop.

As for Baig’s description of the new Pixels as being for “power users”, I think that’s off the mark. I think David Pierce, at Wired, has a more apt description of the target audience:

Google really still intends the Pixel for its hardest of hardcore fans: the people who live in Google products all day, or who develop apps for those products.

★ Thursday, 12 March 2015