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Put simply, the more advanced versions of the USB protocol allow for faster data and power transfer. Most of us will never care enough to tell the difference between USB 3.0 and USB 3.2, but it's nice to know how it all works.
In the end though, it’s what’s inside a cable that matters the most and the Apple USB-C cable has top-notch wiring materials that can deliver the most power to your laptop, phone, or tablet. Want to charge your laptop at 100 watts all day? That shouldn’t be a problem for the Apple USB-C Charge Cable. Some USB-C cables feature a chip or e-Marker that contains information the device reads. This two meter cable’s e-Marker is incorrect.In the end, Apple’s USB-C Charge Cable won us over and is actually our recommended cable for those who want a big name on the box and intend to use it for mostly charging. When we say the box, we mean it, because Apple oddly doesn’t include any branding on the cable itself, which is a mistake because you just might mix it up with a lousy cable. Another cable that brings twice the speed and is built to last is the Anker Powerline II. These are USB-IF certified cables and are tested for both their performance and safety. It’s a USB 3.2 Gen 2 cable and bundles the same transfer speed as the one above. But the feature which sets it apart from the rest is its power output. I've appeared on CBS News, in USA Today, and at many other outlets to offer analysis on breaking technology news. Landing on a single standard to rule them all is an elusive aim in the realm of personal technology. At best, you end up in a format war, and one faction emerges victorious for a few years until an entirely new technology takes it out. VHS ate Betamax, then was ousted by DVD, which faded in the face of Blu-ray, itself now virtually extinct following the rise of online streaming services.
USB-C includes support for DisplayPort Alt Mode, which allows USB-C cables to transmit video signals directly between your computer and display via the DisplayPort standard. That means your ultra-thin laptop doesn't need a chunky DisplayPort port, manufacturers can opt for a small USB-C port instead.
In 2017, the organization rolled out a 20 Gbps speed for USB 3.x devices. In honor of the new speed, the version number changed for all speeds so the 5 Gbps speed became USB 3.2 Gen 1 and the 10 Gbps speed became USB 3.2 Gen 2 and the 20 Gbps speed became USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. Physically, the cable is a flat design with a rubbery outer sheath. The strain relief where the cable connects to the housing is minimal, as well, which makes us question its durability over time. BTW, 10Gbps USB3 introduces a new channel encoding which is more efficient. So while the 5Gbps variant translates to at most ~450MB/s real data (after accounting for channel encoding and protocol overhead), with 10Gbps you get ~1100MB/s. Consequently, Gen1x2 is slower (2x450 = 900MB/s) than Gen2x1 (1100MB/s). But it might work over longer distances.
USB-C is an industry-standard connector for transmitting both data and power on a single cable. The USB-C connector was developed by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the group of companies that has developed, certified, and shepherded the USB standard over the years. The USB-IF counts more than 700 companies in its membership, among them Apple, Dell, HP, Intel, Microsoft, and Samsung. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, external SSDs and the best hard drives need at least USB 3.2 / 3.1 / 3.0 speeds. The fastest external SSDs or SSD enclosures can operate at USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) or USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps), though the 10 Gbps speed is far more common and cheaper. If you’re looking for a high-quality USB-C cable that will give you excellent performance, it’s hard to beat Cable Matters 6-foot USB-C cable. The cable can do it all and do it all well (well, almost) from charging at up to 100 watts, transferring data from your USB 3.1 SSD, or running a monitor. The only area where it doesn’t excel is in Thunderbolt performance, which is limited to 20Gbps. That’s not a ding in our book because that’s the tradeoff of a 6-foot cable. To hit 40Gbps, you’d have to step down to a shorter cable. To reduce confusion, the USB-IF also intends to do away with numbered USB versions in the future, instead encouraging device makers to refer to a port's top speed, as in "USB 20Gbps." We're in favor of that. DisplayPort --- as the name might suggest --- is specifically designed to transmit video signals between your computer and a display of some kind, like a monitor, TV, or projector. Typically, that requires both a DisplayPort port, and a DisplayPort cable, but USB-C changes that.USB-C is the emerging standard for charging and transferring data. Right now, it's included in devices like laptops, phones, and tablets and --- given time --- it'll spread to pretty much everything that currently uses the older, larger USB connector. What Is USB Type-C? As you can see above, some USB-C ports use the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 specification, with maximum speeds of 20Gbps. The USB-IF decided on "2x2" because this standard doubles the data lanes within a USB-C cable to achieve the 20Gbps transfer speed. These ports have not been widely available. They will likely go by the wayside in favor of another emerging flavor of USB-C port, supporting USB4, which the USB-IF has announced will eventually support data speeds up to 120Gbps. Like Lightning and MagSafe, the USB-C connector has no up or down orientation. Line up the connector properly, and you never have to flip it over to plug it in; the "right way" is always up. The standard cables also have the same connector on both ends, so you don't have to figure out which end goes where. That has not been the case with all the USB cables we've been using for the past 20 years. Most of the time, you have different connectors at each end. Obviously, as a charge cable it’s terrible for data transfer and can’t drive Thunderbolt devices nor your monitor, but as a charging cable it’s excellent. USB 2.0 is USB 2.0, and anywhere you see it you can be sure that you'll have a maximum transfer speed of 480 megabits per second.
Technically speaking, neither USB 3.2 nor USB 3.1 by itself can deliver video. Using DisplayLink technology, one can convert and compress video into USB data that goes out to a specially-enabled hub or portable monitor. However, few people today use DisplayLink devices.USB 4 has tried to avoid falling into the naming trap. There are only two versions of USB 4: USB 4, and USB 4 v2.0. Regular USB 4 has a maximum transfer rate of 40 gigabits per second, and USB v2.0 has a maximum transfer rate of 80 gigabits per second. We then looked at how fast the cable would charge and transfer data, and whether it supported an alternate mode to run a monitor, using real-world hardware.
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