The first USB4 products are here: What to know, what to buy

The first USB4 products have begun to ship, almost a year after the specification was released. The initial products will include external storage devices, USB docks, and more, executives at the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) told PCWorld.

Although the USB-IF has taken some steps to reduce the confusion around USB4, it’s still going to be a little tricky to distinguish it from Thunderbolt 4—though it may not matter. Here’s what you need to know.

USB4: What you need to know

USB4 represents the closest merge to date of two I/O technologies, USB and Thunderbolt. USB has been around since 1995, providing a port for peripherals as small as a thumb drive or a mouse, or as big as a consumer printer. With USB4, however, the venerable rectangular USB-A port is finally giving way entirely to the ovular USB-C port. 

Thunderbolt is a technology designed by Intel with help from Apple, with the intent of supporting a new generation of faster external storage, more sophisticated monitor technology, and more. It’s younger than USB—Intel celebrated Thunderbolt’s 10th anniversary on February 24—and is still found mostly on Macs, plus some higher-end displays, storage, and Windows PCs. The Thunderbolt 4 standard was ratified at the end of August, 2019, and has slowly worked its way from a paper specification to finished products.

Both Thunderbolt and USB4 share the same USB-C physical connector. They also overlap in terms of throughput: USB4 can operate at peak speeds of 40 gigabits per second (Gbps), the same as Thunderbolt 3 and the new Thunderbolt 4. The USB4 specification is backward-compatible, so you can connect an older USB-C device to a USB4 port. Any older device will run at its native USB speed—it can’t upgrade itself on the fly to USB4 speeds.

Here’s where it gets a little confusing. The USB4 spec doesn’t require Thunderbolt support, so you may find laptops and other devices with a simple USB4 port. The Thunderbolt 4 spec mandates the use of USB4, however, including its optional features. Laptops that include Thunderbolt 4 capability will therefore support USB4 by default. “We know that Thunderbolt 4.0 is basically USB4,” according to Jeff Ravencraft, the president and chief operating officer of the USB-IF, in an interview. Look for Windows models built around Intel’s 11th-gen “Tiger Lake” Core processors, as well as the new Apple MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13, a USB-IF representative noted. 

With USB4, the USB-IF is making great strides in cleaning up the I/O chaos of yesteryear, as expected when the USB4 specification was announced. Gone is the horrible USB 3 naming scheme. USB4 isn’t defined by the specification, but by how fast data moves. The USB4 spec provides for two different flavors of USB4, both 20Gbps and 40Gps, each of which should be properly labeled on the product packaging.

USB Implementers Forum

What USB4 devices can you buy?

Ravencraft said it’s typical that a USB specification requires 12 to 18 months to implement, from a document to shipping product. The first cables began shipping at the end of 2020, he said, and the first USB4 docking stations have hit the market as well. “We anticipate seeing the ramp begin to happen this year,” he said, even with the pandemic.