PSA: If you don't want to fry your new MacBook, pay attention to the quality of your USB cables
Apple's decision to include a single, all-new USB-C port on the reinvented MacBook has sent buyers of the ultraportable scrambling for adapters and conversion cables to connect legacy devices -- but be mindful of what you plug in.
For decades, Hi-Fi enthusiasts have been fighting a holy war over speaker wires. Half of the community swears that their gold-plated jacks and oxygen-free cable sheaths just make things sound better; the other half plugs in lamp cord from Home Depot and says they can't tell the difference.
As we move further into the digital age, a similar battle is being waged by computer nerds over USB cables. The cables themselves are passive -- save a resistor here and there -- and aside from the quality of the plastic, there's very little to differentiate a cheap one from an expensive one.
It's true, for instance, that Apple's $19 Lightning cable doesn't perform $13 better than the $6 version available from Monoprice -- by the by an excellent vendor -- but it's still important to consider the source before going for cut-rate cables.
Google Pixel team member Benson Leung has been reviewing USB-C cables on Amazon for a few months, mostly to determine whether they comply with the USB-C spec. He wants to make sure that consumers who buy a cable to use with a Pixel -- or any other USB-C compliant device -- will get what they think they're paying for.
Everything went swimmingly for more than a hundred reviews, until Leung found a cable that was totally miswired from the factory: in addition to having the wrong resistor, the company had hooked the ground pin on one end to the power pin on the other. The net result was a dead Chromebook Pixel and two fried USB power delivery analyzers.
Several of the cables Leung tested and verified as good actually cost less than the $9.98 SurjTech model that ended his Pixel's life, so this isn't a lesson about cost. Rather, it's one about common sense.
It's fine to look for options which are less expensive than those from the original manufacturer -- even we at AppleInsider use some third-party Lightning cables -- but make sure to stick with brands that are tried and tested.
Remember, your iPhone likely cost you upwards of $600 or your MacBook more than $1,000; don't blush over a $10 cable that could end their lives.
NOTE: Of those Leung tested, Anker's products consistently rated well. You can find USB-C cables and adapters, along with many more Anker power products, at the company's Amazon store.
For decades, Hi-Fi enthusiasts have been fighting a holy war over speaker wires. Half of the community swears that their gold-plated jacks and oxygen-free cable sheaths just make things sound better; the other half plugs in lamp cord from Home Depot and says they can't tell the difference.
As we move further into the digital age, a similar battle is being waged by computer nerds over USB cables. The cables themselves are passive -- save a resistor here and there -- and aside from the quality of the plastic, there's very little to differentiate a cheap one from an expensive one.
It's true, for instance, that Apple's $19 Lightning cable doesn't perform $13 better than the $6 version available from Monoprice -- by the by an excellent vendor -- but it's still important to consider the source before going for cut-rate cables.
Google Pixel team member Benson Leung has been reviewing USB-C cables on Amazon for a few months, mostly to determine whether they comply with the USB-C spec. He wants to make sure that consumers who buy a cable to use with a Pixel -- or any other USB-C compliant device -- will get what they think they're paying for.
Your MacBook cost more than $1,000. Don't cheap out on cables that could kill it.
Everything went swimmingly for more than a hundred reviews, until Leung found a cable that was totally miswired from the factory: in addition to having the wrong resistor, the company had hooked the ground pin on one end to the power pin on the other. The net result was a dead Chromebook Pixel and two fried USB power delivery analyzers.
Several of the cables Leung tested and verified as good actually cost less than the $9.98 SurjTech model that ended his Pixel's life, so this isn't a lesson about cost. Rather, it's one about common sense.
It's fine to look for options which are less expensive than those from the original manufacturer -- even we at AppleInsider use some third-party Lightning cables -- but make sure to stick with brands that are tried and tested.
Remember, your iPhone likely cost you upwards of $600 or your MacBook more than $1,000; don't blush over a $10 cable that could end their lives.
NOTE: Of those Leung tested, Anker's products consistently rated well. You can find USB-C cables and adapters, along with many more Anker power products, at the company's Amazon store.
Comments
I don't feel sorry or sympathetic to people who's only concern is price. Money grubbing is a distasteful thing. If you're truly poor then you wouldn't be buying Apple devices in the first place. If you can afford Apple products then you can afford their cables and buying some no-name cable from China or India is rather literally a "fools errand."
This just tells me that you missed pretty much the entire point of the article. You're buying cables primarily because they are "inexpensive," and you know nothing about their specs or who made them. They "work fine" (so far) and that's good enough for you.
This is the exact attitude and behaviour the article warns against.
If the rumors of Lightning audio and the removal of the 3.5mm jack come true, then I fully expect the MacBook revised soon thereafter with a multi-function Lightning port in place of the single function 3.5mm, which will not only allow for high speed data transfers, but perhaps even charging. A little redundancy in computer equipment is not a bad thing.
This is the thing that gets me, Apples cables aren't very high quality at all. You can get higher quality at a lower cost via third party sources.
Beyond that hat you are right a cable should never fry a bit of electrics if the USB port is properly designed. This article says more about a crappy laptop than it does about the cable. Here is the reality: no matter whom makes your cables eventually you will have one fail. It might fail open but it can easily fail shorted. Either way that failure shouldn't harm the port northern laptop in general.
http://www.satechi.net/index.php/catalog/product/view/id/466/s/type-c-pass-through-usb-hub-space-gray/category/98/
I didn't quite follow what what the common sense lesson is here. Can someone explain it?
The Pixel sells for $1,000 and is quite well engineered. Go ahead and grab a USB-C cable, wire the Vbus pin on one end to Gnd on the other, then use it to charge your MacBook and let us know it goes.
The point of the article was to make sure customers looked at more than just the price. What I learned from the article was that some cables that are being sold may not work, but others do. This is just a warning to educate yourself and to be careful. Find a product that has been reviewed or independently tested and you'll be fine.
The smartest consumers dont blindly buy the cheapest OR the most expensive. They find a quality product at a good price. If you've got more money than brains, go ahead and buy that Monster cable. Pick up an extended warranty while you're at it... The rest of us will take a few minutes to read the reviews and select the best value product that meets our needs - and we'll take the money we've saved and put that towards more toys. I don't mind paying for quality - but I despise paying for a "name". And with digital communications there is a threshold that you hit - above which improvements in quality are wasted.
I buy Apple Care for my iPhones and iPads - but I have never bought an "extended warranty" or as my friends like to call it "an idiot tax". There has never been a time when a device I owned has failed outside of the manufacturers warranty period and inside the extended warranty. Without exception, the failures I've experienced have occurred within the main warranty period or well after the extended period would have ended. If - by some random fluke - in the future, I experience a failure in that extended warranty zone, I can happily go ahead and pay for it myself knowing that I have saved more than 20 times the cost of the repair/replacement by just saying "no" across the board.
While the big companies are easier to rely on, there's no way to know if you can even trust a premium accessory maker. You certainly couldn't judge this while you are in a physical retail store and see some generic looking cable.
I think the situation is worse with Apple products because the products themselves are expensive so you are more likely to want to save on the accessories and 3rd party manufacturers have been trying to make everything in white plastic so they look the same as the Apple ones.
There must be a standards agency that can regulate dangerous equipment. Even if manufacturers can sell the products without approval, if you could look for a mark on the cable that says it was tested and approved to meet the spec, that would be enough to sort the problem because there would be some accountability.
What's not clear is whether or not the defective cable he purchased was 1 bad unit out of a batch of 10,000 - which points to possible quality control issues - or if it was a bad design and ALL of that particular model cable was bad. If the former - there's really nothing we can do to protect ourselves since a 1-off defect can happen to any manufacturer. The only safe approach in that case would be to purchase or borrow a cable tester and test any and all cables before connecting them to your expensive equipment. Not really a feasible approach for most people...but as someone else correctly pointed out - most quality products have built in protection to prevent a bad cable from causing damage.