[CoolGuySteve]

USB-C lets you share adapters with others.

Their commoditized nature means people are making smaller and lighter adapters.

Depending on the wattage you can use the same USB-C adapter for multiple devices.

There are many USB-C external batteries available.

[cushychicken]

All of these arguments apply to barrel connectors as well. Many, many devices have barrel connectors for just such a reason.

[sukilot]

They tend to have different barrel connectors, because barrels can't negotiate voltage.

[cushychicken]

Not at all. That's part of the drawback of barrel jack connectors. There is no standard voltage output. You can undervoltage your product input, or overvoltage it and break something.

[userbinator]

Before the whole USB-C thing, the majority of laptops had already settled on something like 18-20V (with some of the smaller ones at 10-12V). The input tolerances are relatively wide and you are highly unlikely to cause damage unless the polarity is reversed.

Here's some comments I made a few years ago explaining why that voltage:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12618406

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7594383

[CoolGuySteve]

Except their variety destroys the economies of scale that make the USB-C peripheral market so much more diverse.

[cushychicken]

Mmm, I don't buy that.

There are tons of wall warts with barrel jack outputs that are the exact same case size and cable length. A quick search of digikey will confirm that. That's a big part of their flexibility - you can easily get an AC/DC converter spec'd for slightly more power in just about the exact same form factor. If you need a little more power, buy a wall wart with slightly higher rated amperage.

I would also suggest that the Pinebook volumes are nowhere near the scale where they can harness USB-C benefits. They're a small company, not an Apple.

[RL_Quine]

I have a crate of probably 30-40 different power supplies. Almost no two are alike, there's 5v, 5.1v, 19v, 32v, 19v, at every amperage from .3 to 30. They all have different sizes of plug, different polarity, different shapes.

Conversely, I can walk around my apartment and charger my thinkpad from any of about 20 different USBC supplies. I can charge my phone in the car, or my laptop from the USBC output. There's a swathe of batteries on the mantle, all of which can charge my phone or my laptop for days or a week depending which size I pick up.