FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Outfitting your travel kit for USB-C
View Single Post
Old Nov 29, 2021 | 8:00 am
  #496  
StuckInYYZ
All eyes on you!
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 3,734
Originally Posted by Polytonic
Picked up the Razer 130W GaN charger, mainly planning on using it to power an iPhone and iPad.

Has anyone given much thought into the cables situation at all?

My portable battery charges over MicroUSB with a regular USB output, iPhone over Lightning, iPad Pro over USB-C/Thunderbolt. So at a minimum, I'd need at least 3 cables:

- USB-C to USB-C (iPad) (preferably Thunderbolt)
- USB-A to Lightning (iPhone)
- USB-A to MicroUSB (Battery)

The Razer (and many other) charger(s) offer USB-A/C ports, higher power on the USB-C ones presumably. I've seen various reversible/3-in-1 cables out there (e.g. Anker makes one) but I've read they charge very slowly. I don't care about data transfer, but I do care about fast(er) charging without having to carry a million different cables. What are people using to solve the cables problem?
There are multi-head solutions
out there out there
. But personally I carry the two separate cables myself (I don't carry Apple products with me at the moment). Part of the reason is that you aren't completely screwed if the cable breaks. Also you can charge multiple devices at the same time.

As to why the charging cables charge slowly, it's usually a missing wire in the cable ("charging cables" often don't have all the wires required). It is used by data transfer cables for some reason (I don't remember why) but it also needed to detect if you can fast charge. With USB-C I think it's still there as I have USB-C cables rated for USB 2.0 speeds only (didn't see the spec until after I got it).
StuckInYYZ is offline