Imo this is a design problem of the motherboard and not the USB-C itself. Especially in a laptop, there’s no excuse for lenovo to not use a daughter board for all their connectors (Maybe except HDMI), like they used to do in the past. Barrel plugs, which are probably the worst connectors after micro usb, used to be on a seperate board and easily replaceable.
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As soon as I saw the iPod-like spin-o-rama interface, I tapped out on this camera. I HATED that interface.
I was never considering getting this camera (even if I had \infty money, there are about 20 other cameras and many more lenses that I would get before I got the Sigma BF), but from the very first moment I admired the mojo of its designers.
Just like I have respect for Canon for still developing their sensors in-house, Fujifilm for keeping aperture rings on a lot of their lenses, Olympus for loading their cameras with computational features, etc. It is great that camera makers experiment, even when the majority of those experiments just do not capture a large market share.
The only reason I would try a Sigma BF (again, \infty money scenario, not something I have to worry about at the moment 
) is to form my own opinion about it. I find it tiresome that a lot of reviewers boo some cameras just because they are different from the interface they are used to, or made a bold choice that could be perfect for some people.
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Weirdly, I tend to be much more critical of a camera system once I’m able to afford it. It brings into focus the opportunity cost of a new system. I’d have to explore a new lens ecosystem to find the lenses whose rendering I like. I’d have to learn a new operating paradigm, and learn work around its limitations. I’d have to learn to post process a new camera. I’d have to learn the strengths and weaknesses of this sensor and processor.
I know from experience that this process takes me several years. It’s that cost that I find much more daunting than the pure monetary one.
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For similar reasons, I neither bought a Sigma ‘Quattro’ model nor did I ‘upgrade’ to their proprietary converter SPP6 made necessary by that model.
Thanks for the great advice! I did this to my phone and unearthed an unbelievable amount of dirt, probably 90% pocket lint compressed to the density of a neutron star. Now it is good as new.
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It’s honestly mind boggling how much pocket fluff and lint gets into those sockets. The volume I pull out with a pin looks to occupy at least 5-10 times the total volume of the hole!
I assume it’s some kind of quantum physics/string theory thing, because USB-C clearly breaks conventional Euclidean geometry.
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This got me wondering, do people usually put their phone in the pocket with the port facing down? I just inspected my phone and the usb-c port is pretty clean, meanwhile the audio grill on top and the camera microphone hole are pretty dirty, I usually put it in my pocket with the port facing upwards.
In which direction do you store your phone in your pocket
- Port facing up
- Port facing down
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voters
Me too. It feels like the natural choice. You then grab it by the base and it’s ready to put straight to your ear or your face if you need to check how you look with the selfie camera… but I don’t do that, no, never, not me, but some do, apparently…
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Oops. I clicked the wrong button. I really put it in my pocket with the charging port up.
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So that’s leaves just @rgo with some explaining to do!
After voting, I was thinking why I do it (spoiler: it doesn’t make sense 
).
I can’t put it face down because it looks like wrong to me. Like a book face down in a book shelf.
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In my jacket pocket: port to one side.
In my pants pocket: port down. That way, I can make sure that keys in the same pocket won’t contact either the screen or the lenses.
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Looks like you’ll all have to wait a bit before you can get it:
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Saw one of these in the flesh today, though it’s a terrible pic because of the dingy second hand camera shop, bright sun outside and some kind of chip fat smeared on my phone.
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My laptop’s USB-C connector started failing last Thursday. It is used for charging, display output, peripherals. The laptop is a mid-range Lenovo, out of warranty.
First the display connected and reconnected, especially when I was doing something that required a lot of power (eg Darktable ). I thought it was the cable, or the display, but it turned out to be the port.
I quickly put the SSD in a spare laptop so that I could continue working. I called the firm I usually take my laptops to, and the repair tech said that after de-soldering the port, there are three possibilities:
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if the wiring on the PCB are intact, and they can obtain a replacement port (USB-C is standard, but the port hardware connections to the mainboard are not), they can resolder one and I am good to go, with my pockets about 100 EUR lighter. This is the absolute best case scenario.
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Frequently it happens that the wiring on the PCB fries, because, I was told, we are talking about very thin wires not designed to carry 100W that the standard allows. Maybe they can repair it under a microscope if it is just one or two wires. Unfortunately, this is the most common problem they face, about 80% of the time, especially for laptops outside warranty, after continuous load for a few years, the wires give out. They also see them snapping, in which case some manufacturers refuse warranty repairs, claiming it is mechanical damage. This would be around 150-250 EUR, depending on the exact repair.
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If that does not work, the laptop is toast, mainboard replacement does not make sense economically unless they can find a used spare, but in that case, they can give no warranty.
My next laptop is probably a frame.work, which has use-replaceable ports. But otherwise, if I was shopping from a main brand laptop, I simply would not know which has a replaceable port and which does not. The repair tech told me that even premium, 2000 EUR laptops have these problems, much to the surprise of their owners. They show up insidiously, over the years, often outside warranty.
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Yep. Framework really seems like the best choice as of late. They are a bit more expensive for what you get performance wise but at least there’s the possibility of repairing it yourself.
The hardware itself seems really well engineered too, so I doubt that second problem you listed will happen to their mainboards.
Edit: The second best thing about them is that their CEO is really open about what they do/won’t do, its very rare from a company.
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