The idea of using USB Type-C cables to charge anything was limited by the power they could provide. Club3D, a small Dutch retailer, has released a new cable capable to carry the power of up to 240W. The company has three cables to choose from: two that are fully suitable for power, data and video transfer, and another that is limited to power delivery and slower (USB 2.0) data transfer. With such cables, in addition to data at speeds of up to 40 Gbps, you can power most laptops, smartphones and even system units. It remains to wait for chargers with this power and USB Type-C output.
An updated specification for these cables was released a year ago. In May 2021, the USB Developers Forum (USB-IF) released an update to USB-C v2.1, which sets out the Extended Power Range (EPR) standard. In particular, this standard allows USB-C to support a power supply of up to 240 watts, which corresponds to 48V at 5A.
Prior to the USB-C v2.1 update, the standard was limited to 100W (20V at 5A). That’s why it’s rare to find a creative or gaming laptop that charges from a USB-C connector. The appearance of these updated cables is impressive, but now we need chargers and devices that can take advantage of these new features. Club3D’s own series of chargers has a maximum power of 132W.
USB-C charging with up to 240W of power should be sufficient for the majority of popular laptops, except those equipped with the most powerful CPU’s and GPU’s available at the moment.
At the time of writing, we have not been able to find any information on the retail availability and prices of these new cables.
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