This stemmed from a question that came to us from one of our readers who was interested in knowing if the magnetic USB cables they were running into on Amazon were worth the buy or not. Compared to normal 3rd party cables, some of these magnetic options are typically more expensive, so it would make sense to question their worth when there are so many gimmicks out there to drain you of your money with.
We took some time to answer this question in one of our Tech Talk videos since the answer to go either way depending on what you are looking to use the cable(s) for or the type of device owner you are (dedicated to a single OS/brand, or owning a vast selection of gadgets).
Clearly, if you are solely an Apple user and could care less about owning anything else, having a few basic lightning cables lying around is likely going to work out the best for you. You can find them cheap online and you don’t have to worry much about different connection types ever since Apple moved to use the lightning connector for everything. At least, until they change their mind again as they will likely want to compete with USB4 as it starts rolling out everywhere.
Take a look at our video here where we go into detail about why the answer could be yes, or no. We also cover a few differences to watch out for when it comes to these cables, as they are not all equal when it comes to function/capabilities.
Discussed in the video:
- Digital Ant charging cables – Note: It looks Digital Ant dropped the lightning adapter from their set for some reason. This lost them a few points in our recommendation since there are now six tips instead of nine, yet the price remained the same. They had already dropped their cool bullet-shaped carrying case that carried three tips, which was convenient for throwing in a bag for when you needed them. So technically the cost has continued to rise since they continue to drop parts of the kits while not adjusting the price any.
