Apparently USB PD spec has even higher power than I realized
Having finally received my warranty replacement laptop (took 3.5 months due to parts not getting delivered from intel, specifically CPUs. How I hate this stupid AI craze.) I noticed the replacement now has USB-C for the power connector rather than a proprietary lenovo plug. Given the power requirements I remember them having in the past that seemed like a low since I thought 100W was the maximum (20V at 5A), but no it turns out they support 28V, 36V and 48V these days, and this power supply supports up to 28V, so 140W. That's impressive. I guess the days of proprietary power supplies might actually be numbered. -- Len Sorensen
My laptop, T450, has 2 batteries, one of which is dead. Instead of getting a new battery, I chose a cheaper solution... 3 Lenovo power supplies throughout the house. So, if I get a new laptop, I have to get rid of all the old stuffs? :-( On 2026-07-03 10:56, Lennart Sorensen via Talk wrote:
Having finally received my warranty replacement laptop (took 3.5 months due to parts not getting delivered from intel, specifically CPUs. How I hate this stupid AI craze.) I noticed the replacement now has USB-C for the power connector rather than a proprietary lenovo plug. Given the power requirements I remember them having in the past that seemed like a low since I thought 100W was the maximum (20V at 5A), but no it turns out they support 28V, 36V and 48V these days, and this power supply supports up to 28V, so 140W. That's impressive. I guess the days of proprietary power supplies might actually be numbered.
Look for "slim tip to usb c adapter" On Fri, Jul 3, 2026 at 5:00 PM William Park via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
My laptop, T450, has 2 batteries, one of which is dead. Instead of getting a new battery, I chose a cheaper solution... 3 Lenovo power supplies throughout the house. So, if I get a new laptop, I have to get rid of all the old stuffs? :-(
On 2026-07-03 10:56, Lennart Sorensen via Talk wrote:
Having finally received my warranty replacement laptop (took 3.5 months due to parts not getting delivered from intel, specifically CPUs. How I hate this stupid AI craze.) I noticed the replacement now has USB-C for the power connector rather than a proprietary lenovo plug. Given the power requirements I remember them having in the past that seemed like a low since I thought 100W was the maximum (20V at 5A), but no it turns out they support 28V, 36V and 48V these days, and this power supply supports up to 28V, so 140W. That's impressive. I guess the days of proprietary power supplies might actually be numbered.
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On Fri, Jul 3, 2026, 13:18 Nick Accad via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Look for "slim tip to usb c adapter"
I picked up two of these and they are all with every penny. Being able to travel with my personal ThinkPad X1 carbon and my employer provided MacBook Pro (lovely hardware, terrible OS) with only a single power block plus the wee adaptor saves considerable space. The adaptors do run warm when charging, not hot enough to burn, just enough to surprise ya when unplugging it. I'm very much a fan of consolidating all in on USB-C for the foreseeable future. -jason
On Fri, Jul 03, 2026 at 01:00:22PM -0400, William Park via Talk wrote:
My laptop, T450, has 2 batteries, one of which is dead. Instead of getting a new battery, I chose a cheaper solution... 3 Lenovo power supplies throughout the house. So, if I get a new laptop, I have to get rid of all the old stuffs? :-(
Yeah they use a power supply design for a number of generations but eventually change it. In the case of the Thinkpad P1 they used one power supply from gen 2 to gen 7, but gen 8 has gone to USB-C PD. Thinkpads have as far as I know used the round barrel from sometime in the 90s to around 2013 when the T440/T540/W540 came out. I do know my W530 could use a T430 power supply but only to charge the battery when it was off. To run it needed a larger power supply that had the round connector but with a flattened side that didn't fit in the smaller thinkpads. Then they had the rectangle power conector from the Xx40 generation up until they switched to USB-C. Smaller models switched a few years ago, while high end machines that needed more than 100W only swithed in the last year it seems. My wife's P17 has that, as did the P1 gen 7 I had that got damaged. Apparently the P1 gen 7 could charge via USB-C PD but it required a non standard 20V 7A (rather than the 5A limit the standard provides) power supply to do it, so I think it was only really used with docking stations specifically designed for it. And now it seems everythign has USB-C PD connectors. Benefits seem to be using a standard rather than proprietary connector, and also you can connect to any USB-C port on the machine (so take your pick of left or right side), and when not charging you have an extra free USB-C port to use. For people with the 20V rectangular power supply there exist very cheap adapters to allow them to be used with many of the USB-C PD laptops so you don't have to throw them away apparently. -- Len Sorensen
(Confusingly, USB C is a connector, not a protocol or set of protocols. But the use of a USB C connector hints are supporting modern protocols.)
From: Lennart Sorensen via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
I guess the days of proprietary power supplies might actually be numbered.
Not exactly. There are so many PD specs that you need to make sure that your power supply conforms to one that will feed your computer enough power. PD 3.2 is the latest in this article: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#USB_Power_Delivery> Note: not all USB C cables support all PD modes. And then there are proprietary extensions to PD -- Qualcomm QC, for example. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Faster-charging_standards> So: we went from a stupid diversity of connectors, easily visible, to an almost invisible set of compatibility requirements. I think that they are safe: mistakes won't catch fire.
On Fri, Jul 03, 2026 at 05:49:51PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote:
(Confusingly, USB C is a connector, not a protocol or set of protocols. But the use of a USB C connector hints are supporting modern protocols.)
Yeah Thunderbolt is using the connector too and isn't USB. Some of the USB-C ports on my laptop have a lightning bolt next to them, so they are thunderbolt ports too. Some of them have a 5 as well which I think means thunderbolt 5 so up to 80Gbps. I wonder what devices can use that.
Not exactly. There are so many PD specs that you need to make sure that your power supply conforms to one that will feed your computer enough power. PD 3.2 is the latest in this article: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#USB_Power_Delivery>
Note: not all USB C cables support all PD modes.
Certainly true. The thinkpad one I got says it does 28 and 20V at 5A and 15, 9 and 5V at 3A. But it does mean if you do get one good PD supply it can cover everything. The little one I use for my phone says 5, 9, 15 and 20V, with up to 3A but max 30W (so 1.5A at 20V). I have one I use for my soldering iron which does up to 65W (20V 3.25A) as well as 5, 9, 12, 15 and 20V, both PD and QC 3.0. It apparently also has a 10W wireless charge pad on top. I never noticed that before.
And then there are proprietary extensions to PD -- Qualcomm QC, for example. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Faster-charging_standards>
QC 4.0 (which is the USB-C version is a superset of PD and QC 4.0 power supplies are also PD compatible). QC 3.0 and older which were USB-A were definitely their own standard.
So: we went from a stupid diversity of connectors, easily visible, to an almost invisible set of compatibility requirements. I think that they are safe: mistakes won't catch fire.
-- Len Sorensen
participants (5)
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D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Jason Shaw -
Lennart Sorensen -
Nick Accad -
William Park