[dawidpotocki]

You can find USB 5Gbps in a Pixel 6a that costs 300 USD on Amazon. USB 3 is not exactly some fancy new expensive tech.

You can get a breakout board for few bucks yourself and that's still going to be more than Apple would have to pay.

The actual answer is that they used last year's SOC which had only USB 2 support.

[raydev]

The port is capable, but does the Pixel actually move data that fast over it?

[JohnTHaller]

> The port is capable, but does the Pixel actually move data that fast over it?

My girlfriend's Pixel 4a can transfer about 4x USB2's real world maximum. Just tested it.

USB 3 isn't new, it dates back to 2008. Every Pixel phone except the original Pixel 1 (USB 3.0) and Pixel 3a (USB 2.0) supports USB 3.1.

[raydev]

My bad, I was thinking about the Pro models' 10Gbps maximum and was looking for comparisons at that speed. I replaced what you wrote with the phone I had in my head!

[opan]

The max speed isn't as important as much as the fact it can go past the USB 2 limit in speed.

[coldtea]

For determining whether it's USB 2 or not maybe (and even then it might not be so clear cut).

For actual use the actual practical max speed is far more important. It would be useless if you wanted something better than USB 2.0 and it only did 1.1 times the USB 2 limit for example.