Have you ever wondered if there is a big difference between a cheap Chinese USB charge cable and an original or 3rd party brand one? This post and video will be a  follow up on my post about cable length.

This will be a little bit of a hybrid video and text post. First up, the video:

 

 

Apologies for the grainy look, I really need a better camera. 😛

The video shows all the real-time testing and show you my test setup. The text portion is a bit, it shows the results of different tests I made using my new EBD-USB+ measurement device to see how well the cables did and up until which power level each cable could be used.

You have seen the video, let’s continue

So, after this point I’m assuming you watched the video! As you can see there can be quite a difference in the brand of cable you are using to charge your phone. Especially if you are using longer cables (6FT-10FT, 2m-3m) and cheaper (shitty) quality, voltages will drop REALLY low.

As a guideline I would say that anything dropping below 4v should not be used. When talking 5v (As USB always is except for the new USB-C and Qualcomm Quick Charge) a drop to 4v means you lose about 20% of total voltage and that’s quite a lot!

A question a lot of you guys are probably going to ask is “which cable is the best“. Well, a quick answer to that is that it seems that in the 10FT category the Anker 10FT cable is the best! There you have it! If you would like to buy it, you can do so here on Aliexpress.

If we’re looking at 6FT or 2M cables, basically all the brand cables performed quite well. Anything from Aukey, Anker and Tronsmart works well and is recommended.

Anker PowerPort US 10 Ports USB Charger 50W

Testing different cables!

Ok, so, let’s see these graphs. All the cables will have their Aliexpress link in the text!First up, a uGreen 1.6FT (50cm) USB3 extension cable. It does very well up until ~2.6A which is where the charger I was using will shutdown the port because of excessive power draw.

This is a 1FT (30cm) Tronsmart cable, it does very well and even at ~3.5A it’s still around 4v! (This test was done using a different USB power supply)

Testing the 10FT cables

This was the shitty 1FT (30cm) USB cable as shown in the video. It’s quite bad, even around 1.5A it’s really not usable anymore. Don’t use crap like this. In this case, this cable came with a wireless QI cable from China.

The Anker 10FT (3m) USB cable. It does very well, only at the end does it drop to the 4v mark, but at that point it’s well beyond 2A as we where testing. It does very well, recommended!

If you would like to buy it from Amazon (US) you can do so here.

This is the uGreen 10FT (3m) USB cable. It does pretty good although it does drop below  4v in the end, but using it at 2A it’s just fine. Recommended!

This is the mygeek 10FT (3m) USB cable. It does ok, but even at only 2A it does drop in voltage a lot. Using it for a 1A device would be acceptable, but honestly, better to get a better cable.

This was the Millionwell 10FT (3m) cable. It does ok, but it’s not really suitable for 2A charging. Using it for 1A would probably best ok, but again, probably better to get a better cable.

This is the cheap 10FT (3m) Chinese flat USB cable as seen in the video. Holy cow this is horrible. Do not use it for anything and just throw it away! If you bought it… well, too bad, it was cheap, so just throw it in the bin now. 😛

And this is the other 10FT (3m) cheap USB cable. It’s the one in black with colored spots in the video. What to say….read the comment above, just throw it away!

End!

And there you have it. So yes, there is good and bad brands, and the very cheap (1$ to 4$) Chinese cables are utter crap, do not buy them. And the more expensive cables from brands are indeed better!

If you have any questions or remarks, let me know!