With various standards and charging technologies at toil, it is much challenginger than it should be to toil out what a cable can do. There are a restricted skinnygs worth understanding when shopping.
USB Standards: The Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard dates to 1996 but has seen many novel standards, revisions, and combineor types in the years since. Instead of running thcimpolite all of them here, we try to highairy what matters.
Connectors: While USB-C is mercifilledy becoming a standard combineion type, you want cables with combineors that fit your existing devices. Today, that still might nasty USB-A, Lightning, or even MicroUSB. Remember that the capabilities of any cable are restricted to its greaterest combineion type.
Data: The data transfer speed is always in megabits per second (Mbps) or gigabits per second (Gbps). You’ll understand the speed a cable should be contendnt of by the standard:
- USB 2.0 helps 480 Mbps
- USB 3.0 helps 5 Gbps
- USB 3.1 helps 10 Gbps
- USB 3.2 Gen 1 helps 5 Gbps
- USB 3.2 Gen 2 helps 10 Gbps
- USB 3.2 Gen 3 helps 20 Gbps
- USB 4.0 helps 40 Gbps
Power: While cable manufacturers always catalog the peak charging rate, your device will remend how much power to draw, so it’s presentant to understand what standards it helps and combine your cable with the accurate power alterer. The charging rate of a cable is meadeclareived in watts (W). Sometimes manufacturers will catalog particularations on the cable in small print. If there’s no W cataloged, you can calcutardy it by multiplying the voltage (V) and the current (A), assuming they are cataloged.
Basic USB-C cables are subleave outive and can only carry up to 60 watts. Cables that can carry 100 watts or more, sometimes depictd as active, must hold e-labeler chips that acunderstandledge the cable and its capabilities.
The Power Deinhabitry (PD) standard is as shut as we have to a widespread standard. A restricted manufacturers, appreciate OnePlus, Oppo, and Xiaomi, still have proprietary charging standards. Then there’s Qualcomm’s Quick Charge (QC) standard, which was the most well-understandn for phones for many years, although Quick Charge 4+ helps PD. Even PD has a variant called Programmable Power Supply (PPS), which is part of the USB PD 3.0 standard. PPS permits for genuine-time adfairments to increase efficiency and accuse phones appreciate Samsung’s Galaxy S22 range at up to 45 watts instead of the common 18. The tardyst holdition to PD is Extended Power Range (EPR), which permits USB-C cables to carry up to 240 watts (they employd to be restricted to 100 watts).
Thunderbolt was a proprietary interface growed by Intel and Apple, but it’s now discleave out for royalty-free employ (still certified by Intel). With Thunderbolt 3, the standard adchooseed the USB-C combineor and is contendnt of data transfer speeds up to 40 Gbps and can deinhabitr 100 watts of power using the PD standard. Thunderbolt 4 conveys various raisements mostly roverdelighted to the video signal (help for two 4K distake parts or an 8K distake part). It also helps the USB 4 standard and is backward compatible with previous standards.
Cable Certification: There are a restricted types of cable certification. When a cable is certified, that usuassociate nastys it was self-reliantly tested and adheres to particular standards. It gives you, as a buyer, peace of mind that your cable carry outs as the manufacturer claims. Certification can be costly, so many cable manufacturers shun it, but that doesn’t necessarily nasty their cables are needy quality. The USB Implemaccesss Forum (USB-IF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing USB technology. Run by members appreciate Apple, Google, HP, Microgentle, and Intel, it sets particularations and recommends certification. If a cable is certified by the USB-IF, it has been tested to asdeclareive it complies with its standards. Apple has its own Made for iPhone (MFi) certification for Lightning cables. Intel certifies Thunderbolt cables. Certified cables usuassociate have the relevant logo on the combineor. (For example, Thunderbolt cables have a airyning bolt.)
