Apple’s pricing for gadgets comparable to cables is all the time criticized as a result of they’re costlier than others. Take, for instance, Apple’s Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) Professional cable—it begins at $69 for a 1-meter cable and goes as much as $159 for 3 meters. It’s simple to go to Amazon or another retailer and discover a related cable at a fraction of the worth.
It seems that these excessive costs may be price it. Lumafield, a producing firm that makes a speciality of industrial picture scanning, determined to scan Apple’s cable and examine it to others which can be far more inexpensive. What they discovered is that Apple’s cable is far more intricate than the cheaper cables–briefly, you’re getting extra in your cash.
The primary takeaway from Lumafield’s scan and examination of Apple’s cable is that it’s really constructed to be sturdy and assist the specs it touts. It incorporates metallic shielding, robust pressure reduction, and a printed circuit board meeting (PCBA) with 24 pins which can be all in use. Apple even goes to the extent of constructing positive the circuit board traces are the identical size to make sure correct knowledge transmission. Apple additionally makes use of three totally different wires that correspond to its knowledge and charging talents. Lumafield calls the Apple Thunderbolt Professional cable a “gorgeous piece of precision engineering.”
Lumafield additionally checked out cables from Amazon, NiceTQ, and Atyfuer–all priced at $10 or decrease–and located that these cables are far more fundamental than Apple’s cable. Of the three, the Amazon cable was the one one which had metallic shielding and a “less complicated” type of stain reduction. Lumafield additionally discovered that the NiceTQ cable (which has been discontinued) didn’t have sufficient pins and wires to assist the 10Gbps knowledge switch speeds it touted. The Atyfuer cable, the most affordable cable ($4) they scanned, is marketed as a charging cable solely, however Lumafield discovered that it was configured for USB 2.0 knowledge transfers.
The one evident difficulty with Lumafield’s research–which the corporate doesn’t immediately level out–is that the Amazon, NiceTQ, and Atyfuer cables are not Thunderbolt cables, they’re solely meant for use with USB-C. Thunderbolt 4’s knowledge switch price is specified at 40Gbps, which is way greater than USB 3.2 (10Gbps) or USB 2.0 (480Mbps). That would clarify why the cheaper cables don’t do or have among the issues the Apple cable does, comparable to utilizing all of the pins of their PCBA (and even having one within the first place). However that doesn’t excuse the engineering shortcuts that these cables have.
So, in the event you’ve balked on the costs of Apple’s Thunderbolt 4 Professional Cable, Lumafield’s research does a superb job of exhibiting what you get in your cash. Customers who require the quick pace that Thunderbolt presents can relaxation assured that Apple’s cable has the tech to do what it’s alleged to do.