Consumer Reports says Apple’s $29 Lightning cable is best
Hear me out, but that $29 Lightning cable Apple sells is really good value – but once the switch to USB-C completes, you’ll be spending a fraction of that for robust connectivity cables, according to Consumer Reports.
Greased lightning? (Sorry)
Consumer Reports put charging cables made by Apple, Samsung, and other brands through a tough testing routine to figure out which cables will last longest. The idea behind the trial was to figure out which ones are the most reliable so people don’t end up finding the cable fails just when they need to recharge their device most.
They also looked at low-priced charging cables from Amazon Basics, Walmart’s Onn brand, and Bytech to see how well they stack up against cords sold by Apple and Samsung and found a $6.55 option that was impressive.
They tested seven cables, with Apple’s Lightning cable the most expensive in test. The other cables were USB-C, suitable for most future consumer electronics kit.
The cables were put through a series of durability tests, based on a number of criteria. “
For the sake of this exercise, we assumed that the average charging cable gets bent or twisted five times a day in real-world use. Using that math, we estimated how many bends and twists each cable would have to endure to deliver 1.5 years of reliable use,” they told me. They built a machine to run the following tests.
The Bend test
In the first test, the rig repeatedly bent one end of the cable into a 90-degree angle until it surrendered its power, failing to relay electricity to a small plastic fan.
The Twist test
In this test, the rig twisted each cord again and again while it powered a makeup mirror illuminated by LED lights.
The idea behind both tests was to simulate real world challenges our poor cables face.
This is what they found:
All seven cables aced the twisting test, exceeding the 1.5-year threshold. But only Apple’s Lightning cord and the Amazon Basics USB-C cord passed the challenging 90-degree bend test. In fact, both still worked after 11,500 bends, the equivalent of more than an estimated six years of use. Other cables seemed likely to survive just six months or so of use, they said.
The conclusion?
The Apple Lightning cable is the best cable for iPhone users that don’t have a USB-C port on their smartphone. However, for USB-C cables, the winner was the $6.55 Amazon Basics USB-C cable, which basically means iPhone 15 owners needing a spare cable now also have some spare change for groceries (or to put toward Apple One’s recent price increase).
They also noted that while Apple’s Lightning cable is slimmer than those from Amazon Basics and Walmart, it significantly outperformed both—more than 11,500 bends for Apple to 796 bends each for the others. That’s a pretty big multiple that suggests those Apple cables are worth investing in.
Who knew?
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