USB-C

15 years ago, j5create made a cable that magically let you drag and drop between PCs and Macs. Now, it’s got a $70 USB-C astronaut dongle that wirelessly links Windows PCs with iPads here at CES. You can send files, mirror displays, and beam your mouse and keyboard. I can’t vouch for latency yet — Wi-Fi reliability at CES is kind of crap.

If there’s one thing we love to hate at The Verge, it’s proprietary chargers. So I’m pretty happy to echo this commenter, delighted to find that Chipolo’s first rechargeable trackers support USB-C and Qi wireless (which have their own sets of standards to worry about, but that’s a whole other post).

We called the Baseus PrimeTrip VR2 Max car charger the best charger at CES 2025, and now nearly five months after it was first announced it’s finally available with a small price bump to $49.99.

Literally! Some have magnetic sleeves, some have power meters up the sleeves, and some have excellent charging and data speeds. But five different cables... can someone please make the one to rule them all?

Following Apple’s other headphone brand expanding into smartphone cases last September, Beats has launched a collection of reinforced charging cables featuring a woven design to help minimize tangling. They’re available in five-foot or eight-inch lengths in USB-C to USB-C, USB-C to USB-A, and USB-C to Lightning configurations.

The company first announced last September it was expanding into power banks, and while a 5,000mAh model has already been available, you can now buy EcoFlow’s 10,000mAh Rapid Magnetic Power Bank for $89.99.

We’ve recommended the company’s older ChargeKey before, which supported a decent 60W charging speed and much slower USB 2.0 data transfers. The new 240W version is available now and costs the same $25.

Similar to the Anker Solix C300 DC that debuted last August, the new $119.99 Cuktech 15 Ultra Power Bank can be charged from two USB-C power sources simultaneously. It supports up to 165W of combined input power which can recharge its 20,000mAh battery in 45 minutes.

The new Element 5 Hub differentiates itself from Kensington and Cable Matters’ Thunderbolt 5 docks with a much smaller design. Despite its compact footprint, the $249 Element 5 still features four 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5 ports (up to 120Gbps with Bandwidth Boost), two slower 10Gbps USB-C ports, and three USB-A ports. Power delivery maxes out at 90W, but it can drive three 4K/60Hz displays on Windows, or a pair of 6K/60Hz displays on macOS.

Wrapped in carbon fiber, Sharge’s CarbonBlade has a USB-C and USB-A port while still being just 0.46 inches thick making it easy to slip into a pocket for power emergencies. But for $69.90 it’s also pricier than Anker’s slightly thicker 10,000mAh slim power bank.

The $15 SoundSlide solves a problem that few would consider an actual problem. It replaces a computer’s volume buttons with a customizable touch-sensitive slider that can be operated using finger swipes. For those who miss volume wheels, it might be worth the upgrade. For everyone else, sacrificing a USB-C port for the SoundSlide might be too big an of an ask.

Following its 11-port USB-C dock launched at CES 2024, Razer has announced a new 14-port upgrade.

A reliable leaker on Reddit has shared images and details for an upcoming collection of chargers from Anker featuring only USB-C ports, as spotted by Notebookcheck. Pricing and availability aren’t known yet, but the collection includes options with up to four USB-C ports. The largest chargers deliver up to 140W to a single device, with reduced power delivery when all ports are in use.

Magnetic SD readers are one thing — but there’s also a new wave of MagSafe SSDs with passthrough charging! My early fav is this Dockcase because the screen keeps track of temps, speeds and more; I’m also testing the smaller Genki SavePoint and not-inherently-magnetic Sharge Disk Plus.

The Icemag (video below) is almost obsolete. Next month, Sharge will intro an Icemag 2 that doubles the MagSafe / Qi2 wireless charging speed to 15W, adds a folding kickstand, and reportedly improves the cooling!

We’ve seen the first Thunderbolt 5 port, the first cable, and the first dock to theoretically offer its blistering 120Gbps speeds. Now, behold the first TBT5 cards from Gigabyte and from Asus.