They really don’t make stuff like they used to, pretty much nobody. And credit where it’s due, Apple have been leading the planned obsolescence movement from the start (their iPhone 3 cables were just as bad as the current ones).
On the other end of the spectrum, I own a single no-name MicroUSB cable. I’ve owned it for, I think, a decade at this point. Maybe even longer than that. It was the cheapest cable I could find over 2m in length, cost me about two bucks back then. I’ve used it for phones, MP3 players, external hard drives, mice - you name it, it’s been plugged in it. It still performs just as well as it did when I bought it, it hasn’t lost its shape, and believe me when I say it received zero preferential treatment.
I honestly lost count of how many USB-C cables have failed me so far. Seriously…
That’s weird. I’ve actually had the exact opposite experience as I have never had a USB Type-C cable fail on me at all. And yet I had many, many micro USB cables where the pins at the very end got bent out of shape and would not stay in the port any longer.
Hey, maybe I got extremely lucky with that one cable, but I don’t remember ever having had problems with MicroUSBs.
I even accidentally bent the whole MicroUSB plug by slapping my phone off the table, bent it back into place, and it was good to go! Genuinely felt so much confidence in that cable, that I gave away all other MicroUSB cables I used to get from whatever tech included one in the package.
I now own two 140W USB-C cables which were very expensive - I bought them thinking that I’d take better care of them knowing how much money I wasted. I barely even use them for anything other than charging, so they are hanging off of my nightstand 24/7, and that’s because I’m afraid they’ll snap at the joint if I use them too much.
Trauma dump time, it all started with my first USB-C cable, a OnePlus one. First one lasted for about a year. Bought a second one which lasted about the same, official OnePlus gear. Luckily, everything started coming with its own cable later on, so I didn’t feel the need to stock up. But the two expensive ones are the only USB-Cs I’ve owned for more than a year, because most of the other ones started getting busted joints.
Maybe you did just get a really good micro USB cable because I spend less than $10 on a Type-C cable and am able to use it for years. And as I said, I’ve never had one break.
Well, maybe I spent all my good fortune on that MicroUSB, because I sure haven’t had the same luck with other cables… The only other good one seems to be from my Sennheiser headphones, but that doesn’t get used much, either…
So in rope manufacturing they have the “average breaking force” and the “safe working load” the ABF is the amount of force it takes to break a rope on average whereas the SWL is what it sounds like and is what the rope is rated to hold safely. The ABF is usually 2-10 times the weight of the SWL depending on the material but that’s because there’s a huge amount of variance in how much force different ropes that were manufactured in the same way take to break. If the ABF is 10 times the SWL, that means there were likely ropes that broke at twice the ABF. My hypothesis is that you got one of these ‘top tier ropes’ as your cable, so to speak.
This has been the literal opposite of my experience, I’ve literally never had a USB-C cable fail, but I throw out at least a dozen broken MicroUSB cables every single year ranging from having the metal plug literally just fall out of the cable to looking brand new yet simply not working to cables that only work if you apply downwards pressure at the connector, I honestly don’t think I have a single one that works right now and I replaced every microUSB device I owned as quickly as possible.
The flat type was the second to fail, my first was a standard tube-y one… Granted, I bought mine in 2020, I think, so it may account for a drop in quality.
Bought it exactly based on that rationale, no dice in my case. Started developing a crease right where the cable met the nub toward the USB-C end, then it devolved into severed connections - would work if I wiggled it. And I really didn’t rough it up, it was either plugged into my PC, or plugged into a wall charger at night, with "normal’ amounts of flexing (I feel there’s a word for this, but I’m missing it).
It was my favourite from an aesthetic standpoint, too…
The cables Apple includes now are very flexible braided cables and they are excellent for their purpose. Haven’t had one fail yet, or even show major signs on use. Would like to find any other company making a comparable product, but all the “ultra flexible” cables I’ve found seem to not be as flexible.
Now you get shitty USB c cables.
They really don’t make stuff like they used to, pretty much nobody. And credit where it’s due, Apple have been leading the planned obsolescence movement from the start (their iPhone 3 cables were just as bad as the current ones).
On the other end of the spectrum, I own a single no-name MicroUSB cable. I’ve owned it for, I think, a decade at this point. Maybe even longer than that. It was the cheapest cable I could find over 2m in length, cost me about two bucks back then. I’ve used it for phones, MP3 players, external hard drives, mice - you name it, it’s been plugged in it. It still performs just as well as it did when I bought it, it hasn’t lost its shape, and believe me when I say it received zero preferential treatment.
I honestly lost count of how many USB-C cables have failed me so far. Seriously…
That’s weird. I’ve actually had the exact opposite experience as I have never had a USB Type-C cable fail on me at all. And yet I had many, many micro USB cables where the pins at the very end got bent out of shape and would not stay in the port any longer.
Hey, maybe I got extremely lucky with that one cable, but I don’t remember ever having had problems with MicroUSBs.
I even accidentally bent the whole MicroUSB plug by slapping my phone off the table, bent it back into place, and it was good to go! Genuinely felt so much confidence in that cable, that I gave away all other MicroUSB cables I used to get from whatever tech included one in the package.
I now own two 140W USB-C cables which were very expensive - I bought them thinking that I’d take better care of them knowing how much money I wasted. I barely even use them for anything other than charging, so they are hanging off of my nightstand 24/7, and that’s because I’m afraid they’ll snap at the joint if I use them too much.
Trauma dump time, it all started with my first USB-C cable, a OnePlus one. First one lasted for about a year. Bought a second one which lasted about the same, official OnePlus gear. Luckily, everything started coming with its own cable later on, so I didn’t feel the need to stock up. But the two expensive ones are the only USB-Cs I’ve owned for more than a year, because most of the other ones started getting busted joints.
Maybe you did just get a really good micro USB cable because I spend less than $10 on a Type-C cable and am able to use it for years. And as I said, I’ve never had one break.
Well, maybe I spent all my good fortune on that MicroUSB, because I sure haven’t had the same luck with other cables… The only other good one seems to be from my Sennheiser headphones, but that doesn’t get used much, either…
So in rope manufacturing they have the “average breaking force” and the “safe working load” the ABF is the amount of force it takes to break a rope on average whereas the SWL is what it sounds like and is what the rope is rated to hold safely. The ABF is usually 2-10 times the weight of the SWL depending on the material but that’s because there’s a huge amount of variance in how much force different ropes that were manufactured in the same way take to break. If the ABF is 10 times the SWL, that means there were likely ropes that broke at twice the ABF. My hypothesis is that you got one of these ‘top tier ropes’ as your cable, so to speak.
This has been the literal opposite of my experience, I’ve literally never had a USB-C cable fail, but I throw out at least a dozen broken MicroUSB cables every single year ranging from having the metal plug literally just fall out of the cable to looking brand new yet simply not working to cables that only work if you apply downwards pressure at the connector, I honestly don’t think I have a single one that works right now and I replaced every microUSB device I owned as quickly as possible.
I’m still using my flat OnePlus usb-c cable that I received with my oneplus 3t in 2017.
Somehow the flat cables seem to last longer overall.
The flat type was the second to fail, my first was a standard tube-y one… Granted, I bought mine in 2020, I think, so it may account for a drop in quality.
Bought it exactly based on that rationale, no dice in my case. Started developing a crease right where the cable met the nub toward the USB-C end, then it devolved into severed connections - would work if I wiggled it. And I really didn’t rough it up, it was either plugged into my PC, or plugged into a wall charger at night, with "normal’ amounts of flexing (I feel there’s a word for this, but I’m missing it).
It was my favourite from an aesthetic standpoint, too…
The cables Apple includes now are very flexible braided cables and they are excellent for their purpose. Haven’t had one fail yet, or even show major signs on use. Would like to find any other company making a comparable product, but all the “ultra flexible” cables I’ve found seem to not be as flexible.