{"id":40823,"date":"2023-10-18T14:40:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T18:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=40823"},"modified":"2023-10-30T10:43:44","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T14:43:44","slug":"usb-c-cables-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/18\/usb-c-cables-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"USB-C Cables Comparison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lumafield.com\/article\/usb-c-cable-charger-head-to-head-comparison-apple-thunderbolt-amazon-basics\">lumafield<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=37929338\">Hacker News<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jonbruner\/status\/1714696044356005949\">tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.lumafield.com\/article\/usb-c-cable-charger-head-to-head-comparison-apple-thunderbolt-amazon-basics\"><p>Does Apple&rsquo;s Thunderbolt 4 cable really warrant its $129 price tag? Or does a $5 cable get the job done just as well? We&rsquo;ve used our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lumafield.com\/products\/neptune-industrial-x-ray-ct-scanner\">Neptune industrial X-ray CT scanner<\/a> to uncover the hidden engineering differences between them.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>Overall, the Thunderbolt cable is a stunning piece of precision engineering.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>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.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>The $5.59 NiceTQ USB-C cable claims to transfer data at up to 10 Gbps, lower than the Thunderbolt cable&rsquo;s 40 Gbps but higher than the 480 Mbps claimed by the Amazon Basics cable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/05\/avoid-overspending-for-iphone-15-usb-c-cables-and-chargers\/\">Avoid Overspending for iPhone 15 USB-C Cables and Chargers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/09\/07\/airpods-pro-2022\/\">AirPods Pro 2022<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/22\/affordable-thunderbolt-4-cables\/\">Affordable Thunderbolt 4 Cables<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/16\/how-many-kinds-of-usb-c-to-usb-c-cables-are-there\/\">How Many Kinds of USB-C to USB-C Cables Are There?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/24\/how-some-thunderbolt-3-cables-underperform-with-usb-only-drives\/\">How Some Thunderbolt 3 Cables Underperform With USB-only Drives<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/30\/surprising-complexity-inside-apples-power-adapter\/\">Surprising Complexity Inside Apple&rsquo;s Power Adapter<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/05\/google-engineer-reviews-usb-c-cables-that-dont-work\/\">Google Engineer Reviews USB-C Cables That Don&rsquo;t Work<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/27\/audio-video-cables\/\">Do Expensive Audio and Video Cables Make a Difference?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"usb-c-cables-comparison-update-2023-10-24\">Update (2023-10-24): <a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/usb-c-cable-x-ray\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/usb-c-cable-x-ray\/\">\n<p>Lumafield has not presented a useful way to pit the very expensive Thunderbolt cable against comparable alternatives.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>I would have loved to see what makes Apple&rsquo;s $130 cable different from, say, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.monoprice.com\/product?p_id=44117\">Monoprice&rsquo;s $50 equivalent<\/a> or a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Compatible-Thunderbolt-Maxonar-Charging-Certified\/dp\/B08ZY48D8M\/\">$20 Maxonar-branded cable<\/a>. Both seem to have the same specs as Apple&rsquo;s, and I think assessing the construction differences between those would be more useful. Perhaps Apple&rsquo;s price tag is not pure markup; there is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.righto.com\/2012\/10\/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html\">surprising difference<\/a> in the quality of power adapters, for example.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2023\/10\/apples-130-thunderbolt-4-cable-could-be-worth-it-as-seen-in-x-ray-ct-scans\/\">ArsTechnica<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p id=\"usb-c-cables-comparison-update-2023-10-30\">Update (2023-10-30): <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2023\/10\/25\/apple-thunderbolt-cable\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2023\/10\/25\/apple-thunderbolt-cable\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AD5aAd8Oy84\">Adam Savage has a video up on YouTube with more details<\/a>, based on the same CT scans from Lumafield that are in the Twitter thread I&rsquo;m linking to. Amazing stuff.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>lumafield (via Hacker News, tweet): Does Apple&rsquo;s Thunderbolt 4 cable really warrant its $129 price tag? Or does a $5 cable get the job done just as well? We&rsquo;ve used our Neptune industrial X-ray CT scanner to uncover the hidden engineering differences between them.[&#8230;]Overall, the Thunderbolt cable is a stunning piece of precision engineering.[&#8230;]Less than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-10-18T18:40:20Z","apple_news_api_id":"b70d5e79-48e1-4e73-aeee-9deb0dfdde56","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-10-30T14:43:47Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Atw1eeUjhTnOu7p3rDf3eVg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[90,201,175,1154],"class_list":["post-40823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-cable","tag-thunderbolt","tag-usb","tag-usb-c"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40823"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40963,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40823\/revisions\/40963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}