USB-C Cables Comparison
lumafield (via Hacker News, tweet):
Does Apple’s Thunderbolt 4 cable really warrant its $129 price tag? Or does a $5 cable get the job done just as well? We’ve used our Neptune industrial X-ray CT scanner to uncover the hidden engineering differences between them.
[…]
Overall, the Thunderbolt cable is a stunning piece of precision engineering.
[…]
Less than 1/10th the price of the Apple cable, the Amazon Basics USB-C to USB-C 2.0 Fast Charger Cable offers charging up to 60 W and data transfer speeds up to 480 Mbps.
[…]
The $5.59 NiceTQ USB-C cable claims to transfer data at up to 10 Gbps, lower than the Thunderbolt cable’s 40 Gbps but higher than the 480 Mbps claimed by the Amazon Basics cable.
Previously:
- Avoid Overspending for iPhone 15 USB-C Cables and Chargers
- AirPods Pro 2022
- Affordable Thunderbolt 4 Cables
- How Many Kinds of USB-C to USB-C Cables Are There?
- How Some Thunderbolt 3 Cables Underperform With USB-only Drives
- Surprising Complexity Inside Apple’s Power Adapter
- Google Engineer Reviews USB-C Cables That Don’t Work
- Do Expensive Audio and Video Cables Make a Difference?
Update (2023-10-24): Nick Heer:
Lumafield has not presented a useful way to pit the very expensive Thunderbolt cable against comparable alternatives.
[…]
I would have loved to see what makes Apple’s $130 cable different from, say, Monoprice’s $50 equivalent or a $20 Maxonar-branded cable. Both seem to have the same specs as Apple’s, and I think assessing the construction differences between those would be more useful. Perhaps Apple’s price tag is not pure markup; there is a surprising difference in the quality of power adapters, for example.
See also: ArsTechnica.
Update (2023-10-30): John Gruber:
Adam Savage has a video up on YouTube with more details, based on the same CT scans from Lumafield that are in the Twitter thread I’m linking to. Amazing stuff.
3 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
Interesting seeing the difference in construction. I'd be curious to see the Apple USB-C charge cable.
"Despite being advertised as just a charging cable, its pins and wires are configured for USB 2.0 data transfer." I think all USB charge cables have to support this so the power adapter and device can negotiate the charging rate.
"Does Apple’s Thunderbolt 4 cable really warrant its $129 price tag?"
and then at the end
"Ultimately, we buy cables that meet our needs for data and power transmission, form factor, and longevity."
So a copout non-answer.
"Does Apple’s Thunderbolt 4 cable really warrant its $129 price tag?"
Lets compare it to non-Thunderbolt cables that don't do the things a Thunderbolt cable does but cost less...
:-)
