There are variations in the USB-C cables available. Even while the charging cable that came with your phone could visually resemble the cable that was included with your docking station, there is a good chance that it does not support the same set of features.
In most cases, you won’t be able to determine based solely on the appearance of the cable.
According to an announcement made by Google on Friday, the most recent update for Chromebooks now includes a feature that notifies users if the USB-C cable they are using has limited functionality.
This new Chromebook feature seems like it could be a useful tool to help troubleshoot issues, as USB-C cables can have widely varying capabilities, offering things like different charging and data transfer speeds on a cable-by-cable basis, so it is important to note that these capabilities can vary widely.
Support for Google Cursive, the company’s web software created specifically for writing on Chromebooks, is also included in the most recent versions to Chrome OS. When the software first launched, it was only available on the HP Chromebook x2 11, and I was able to test it out, and I found that it had some useful features that make taking notes (and rectifying typos) much simpler.
For instance, if you scribble over something, it will be removed from your memory.
As part of the newly released Chrome OS 102 upgrade, USB cable alerts are currently being rolled out. However, at the moment, they are only available on Chromebooks that have CPUs of the 11th or 12th generation from Intel and that support either USB 4 or Thunderbolt.
To put it another way, it’s quite unlikely that your $200 Chromebook will display those notifications, at least not right away.