hi its me again
can we get the whole schpiel on usb3 docks that you mentioned in the z600 video?
okay so i didn't go into it largely because i know everyone disagrees with me, but this is my completely biased and unfair opinion of USB-C and USB docks:
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C cables break at a moments notice. "so did micro USB!" yes, that's correct. USB's low cost is a virtue, but makes it intrinsically unreliable, which is fine for the things it's intended for - temporary attachment of peripherals that come and go. running everything into my PC through a connector that's at best a tiny bit more reliable than mini USB is absurd. a USBC dock is great if you want to sneeze and hear "DOO-DOONK" 16 times as all your devices disconnect and reconnect and your monitor flickers on and off
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i have been told that the dock cables are no longer stiff as a car antenna but i haven't yet seen proof of this. the first USBC dock I got was in like 2018 and the cable was so fucking thick and rigid that it demanded 12x more space on my desk than a conventional dock so that the cable could make this great big massive arc. i'm convinced that the manufacturers believe that all their users have "macbook desks", those beautiful picture-perfect workspaces that only exist in the homes of silicon valley programmers with no hobbies. just a great big expanse of empty surface, populated by a single dainty monitor stand, a laptop, a wireless keyboard (chiclet keys) and a potted cactus. there you have plenty of room, you can set your dock waaaaaay across the desk from your laptop so the cable doesn't have to bend. i don't have a space like this, and i never will, in my life, and i've never met anyone who did, so it is a tremendous hardship to ask me to put all my ports inexplicably two feet away from my machine.
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i tried bending the cable around to put the dock behind my machine. in addition to preloading the cable, so it wanted to throw the dock off the desk at all times (and sometimes succeeded) after a couple months, if i bumped the desk, hey how about that: it went DOO-DOONK. DOO-DOONK. DOO-DOONK as everything disconnected and then i'd have to wiggle and unplug it a couple times to get it to reconnect. connector failed with One cycle on it.
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i simply do not like USBC. we either agree that it's fundamentally poorly designed and will always be unreliable or we don't and i won't be able to convince you
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i just don't like hooking up a dock with a cable because i don't like it. i think docks should work by docking, that approach makes more sense to me. i don't like the fact that all my ports are not weighed down by the mass of my PC and can get moved around on the desk.
as you can see, i consider none of these points defensible, i also will not be changing my mind thanks
