Acer Dumping Thunderbolt, Sticking with USB 3.0
USB 3.0 is less expensive, and caters to more peripherals, says Acer.
Back in 2012, Acer became the first PC maker to embrace Intel's lightning-fast Thunderbolt technology. Now in July 2013, Acer has dropped the tech from its machines as of last week, citing performance improvements of USB 3.0 over the high cost related to Thunderbolt.
"We're really focusing on USB 3.0 -- it's an excellent alternative to Thunderbolt," Acer spokeswoman Ruth Rosene told CNET. "It's less expensive, offers comparable bandwidth, charging for devices such as mobile phones, and has a large installed base of accessories and peripherals."
The trick with USB 3.0 is that while there's a growing number of peripherals taking advantage of the new faster port, it's compatible with devices built for USB 2.0 and later. That includes hard drives, flash drives, keyboards, mice, and even gamepads as Rosene pointed out.
Jason Ziller, director of Intel's Client Connectivity Division, didn't seem fazed by Acer's move, saying that PC adoption of Thunderbolt is increasing. Even more, there are more than a dozen new 4th-generation Intel Core processor-based platforms already launched with Thunderbolt, including solutions from Lenovo, Dell, Asus, and others, with more coming throughout 2013.
"Thunderbolt is targeted toward premium systems. It is not targeted to be on mid-range or value systems in the next couple of years," he added. Last year Ziller told CNET that Intel was shooting to have Thunderbolt "broadly deployed" across most PCs within three to five years.
Although Acer has jumped off the Thunderbolt bandwagon for now, rival PC makers are pushing forward with the Intel tech. The Dell One 27 AIO PC features a 27 inch touch screen and a starting price of $2099, and HP offers the touch-based Specture XT 15-1401nr laptop for $1,200. Other recent Thunderbolt-equipped releases include the Asus G750 17 inch gaming laptop with a starting price of $1400, and the Gigabyte P35k 15.6 inch gaming laptop.
However Intel's biggest Thunderbolt ally is co-developer Apple. The upcoming Mac Pro will reportedly come with Thunderbolt 2, a version that doubles the data transfer speeds to 20 Gbps while still retaining the ability to daisy chain six devices and a DisplayPort monitor. Meanwhile, USB 3.0's speed is slated to double to 10 Gbps in 2014. The spec is scheduled to be completed around now, allowing products to trickle onto the market in late 2014 and more broadly in 2015.
Unfortunately, current devices with USB 3.0 ports won't be able to take advantage of the increased speed: new USB controller hardware is needed. The actual connectors will remain the same although it's unclear if current USB 3.0 cables will actually work with the newer spec. "Existing SuperSpeed USB cables are not certified to operate at 10 Gbps; it is possible that some existing SuperSpeed USB cables may be capable of operating at 10 Gbps," the USB 3.0 Promoter Group said.
Ultimately Acer may be placing all bets on the newer USB 3.0 spec. As the company mentioned, USB is less expensive than Thunderbolt, and current Thunderbolt-based external drives cost more than USB versions -- the Thunderbolt cables themselves initially cost around $50. That said, whether or not Thunderbolt has staying power after two and a half years – and whether Acer's departure is a sign of things to come -- remains to be seen. However Ziller believes high-end users appreciate Thunderbolt's performance.
"Thunderbolt 2 enables 4K video file transfer and display simultaneously. We believe it will help increase adoption as more users want to have the capability to work with high-resolution video or photos," he said.

Only dumb Apple users will buy that feature.
Whereas other manufacturers know that its customers are not dumb.
How is USB3 "less expensive" - its standard in most chipsets these days?
Only dumb Apple users will buy that feature.
Whereas other manufacturers know that its customers are not dumb.
How is USB3 "less expensive" - its standard in most chipsets these days?
You just answered your own question. USB3.0 is on most modern chipsets, requiring nothing more than connectors and a bit of power circuitry on the MB. Thunderbolt requires an extra chip, supplied only by Intel.
P. Murray
http://twitter.com/pmurraymusic
How much more expensive to add Thunderbolt into Mobo? $50 dollar extra?
Please give number , because if someone pays 900 dollar notebook, will it complaint to have 50 dollar Thunderbolt?
That thunderbolt cost less than a keyboard and mouse.
This kind of reasoning why Apple will always successful and Acer, as always, behind everyone else
so screw it intel.
anyway this will become irrelevant when usb3.5 arrives in the end of this year with better capabilities then thunderbolt.
How much more expensive to add Thunderbolt into Mobo? $50 dollar extra?
Please give number , because if someone pays 900 dollar notebook, will it complaint to have 50 dollar Thunderbolt?
That thunderbolt cost less than a keyboard and mouse.
This kind of reasoning why Apple will always successful and Acer, as always, behind everyone else
The cable alone costs around $50, and probably around that much extra on a external drive w/ TB compared to one w/ USB 3.0. But that is on the end-user side. For Acer it's the cost of licensing the standard, then in the manufacturing process for incorporating it alongside other existing standards, including USB, all without cluttering the I/O area. From a simple standpoint of simplicity it's better to minimize the costs. Acer is a budget PC retailer.
By nature they strive for quality at a low price, not quality at any cost. Apple can get away with supporting something like Thunderbolt or FireWire for a long time because their market is baked in; not a lot of Apple users are going to suddenly jump ship to Windows over a single feature or cost, otherwise they wouldn't have gone with Apple in the first place. But Acer has to compete with the likes of Asus, HP, Lenovo, Dell, etc in the Windows market. It's more of a cost and a pain to stick with something like this that is struggling right now. They stand a better chance shaving a little cost and competing on cost instead of touting something the vast majority of their consumers will never use, or likely won't need for some years. Trying to also deal with a floundering PC industry, saving the likely much more than $50 makes the most sense.
P. Murray
http://twitter.com/pmurraymusic
First question is do you have USB 3.0 ports? You need USB 3.0 ports to get USB 3.0 speed. Otherwise if you have only USB 2.0, you'll only get 2.0 speeds even with a 3.0 device.
It entirely depends on the performance of the drive(s) you're looking at. Lots of faster HDD's can hit average speeds of around 100-120MB/s; that exceeds USB 2.0 (and firewire 400) speeds, so you're better off going with 3.0. But on the other hand, if you're using "green" (i.e., low power, lower-performance) disks, they might top out around 50-60MB/s (or lower), which is fine for USB 2.0 (give or take some headroom on the bus). USB 3.0 is faster than firewire, but the limiting speed is probably going to be the disk.
It also depends on whether you've got firewire 400 or 800. Firewire 800 is around about as fast as most mainstream HDDs (give or take), with firewire 400 about as fast as usb 2.0. So if you have a firewire 800 connection, and a firewire 800 external hard drive, you're pretty much good to go in terms of speed.
For the purpose of ubiquity, if you have USB 3.0 ports on your system, I don't see why you'd want to maintain firewire moving forward. USB is on pretty much every device, whereas firewire isn't as common.