This article describes the characteristics of the interfaces.
At present, the interface on the notebook is complicated, and the new and old standards coexist, which brings a lot of difficulties for the purchase of the notebook. Today we will introduce some of the more common interfaces.
VGA
This interface is often seen on older laptops or graphics cards. The notebook can be connected to the projector through the VGA interface, which is very practical during meetings. However, the VGA has a small bandwidth and it is difficult to transmit high-resolution pictures. Therefore, the new notebooks that have been launched have basically eliminated such interfaces.
HDMI
HDMI is a video and audio interface introduced by the TV industry. Compared with the analog signal conversion of VGA, the loss of HDMI digital signal transmission is smaller. At present, the maximum bandwidth of HDMI1.4 version has reached 10Gbps, which can meet the transmission requirements of extremely high-resolution content.
USB3.0
USB3.0 is an upgraded version of USB2.0, generally the highest transmission speed is 5Gbps, but the latest USB3.1 can reach 10Gbps. To be precise, USB3.0 is a transmission standard, not a specific interface shape. The interfaces we commonly see today are generally Type-A. Generally speaking, the USB3.0 interface of the notebook will print the color blue, of course, some ultrabooks are currently in aesthetic considerations and will use other colors.
USB3.0 is a data transmission interface, and generally cannot directly output video images like VGA and HDMI.
DP (DisplayPort)
The TV industry has developed HDMI, and the computer industry has developed a DP interface. The two sets of standards coexist for a long time. HDMI often appears on TVs, and DP often appears on computer monitors.
Currently the highest transmission rate of DisplayPort has reached 32.4Gbps, but not all notebooks support this interface.
Lightning
Thunderbolt is the English name "Thunderbolt", so it is widely known by Apple notebooks before. At present, the transmission speed of the latest Thunderbolt3.0 interface can already reach 40Gbps.
But the shape of the lightning interface used by Apple before is miniDP. Unlike the general DP interface, Apple's lightning interface supports PCI-E plug and play. However, in the latest Apple notebook, the miniDP interface version of Thunderbolt has been abandoned.
In addition, the simplest way to distinguish between ordinary miniDP and lightning interface is that lightning interface is usually printed with a lightning logo.
Type-C
The term "Type-C" describes the shape of the interface, and the common interface shape of our USB2.0 and USB3.0 is actually Type-A, and there is actually Type-B. However, after Intel increased the speed of Thunderbolt 3.0 to 40Gbps, it was also compatible with the USB3.1 transmission standard, fully adopted Type-C, and abandoned the miniDP interface.
Therefore, in fact, the Type-C interface on the current notebook can be roughly divided into those that support lightning technology (MacBookPro2016, ThinkPadX1Carbon fifth generation, etc.) and those that do not support lightning technology (such as Notebook Air).
Type-C interface can currently realize multiple functions such as video, audio, file data, PCI-E plug and play, charging, etc. There will be a trend of unification in the future. So it's not surprising that Apple has hacked away the old interface on the latest MacBookPro and replaced it with Type-C.