Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Benson here again, continuing my reviews of USB Type-C legacy cables, adapters, and accessories. I reviewed a different but very similar Cable Matters cable a couple of weeks ago : Cable Matters? USB 2.0 Type C (USB-C) to Type A (USB-A) Cable in White 6.6 Feet I found that cable to be not correctly following the USB Type-C specification. In the weeks since my review, Cable Matters got in touch with me and let me know that they were aware of the issue and they were in the process of fixing it. They were kind enough to send me early engineering samples. Today I am reviewing Cable Matters® USB 2.0 Type C (USB-C) to Type A (USB-A) Cable in Black 3.3 Feet, which I had on order from Amazon. Let's check spec compliance : I'm using my trusty Chromebook Pixel 2015 with the Chromium Twinkie USB-PD Sniffer, available on Amazon from Plugable : Plugable USB 3.1 Type-C (USB-C) Power Delivery Sniffer For my first test, I've got the Cable Matters cable plugged into a Dell 10W charger : Dell 10W Adapter Spare Wall Charger for Venue 8 Pro/8/7 (XDN34) The Type-C end is plugged into Twinkie, acting as a pass through to Chromebook Pixel 2015. Picture attached! localhost ~ # ectool --name=cros_pd usbpdpower Port 0: SNK Charger DCP 4813mV / 2000mA, max 5000mV / 2000mA / 10000mW Port 1: SRC So far so good. Pixel identifies the charger as a DCP (dedicated charging port) type adapter, and has negotiated 2A 10W of charging. Let's see what Twinkie says : > adc CC1_PD = 16 CC2_PD = 430 The ADC command reads the current voltage values from the CC pins. As you can see here, CC2_PD pin has a value of 430mV. Referring to the USB Type-C Specification Table 4-25 Voltage on Sink CC pins, this voltage falls right in the middle of the range allowed for vRd-USB, meaning that yes, this cable has the correct 56kΩ pullup resistor! One more command : > tw vbus VBUS = 4885 mV ; -2040 mA The tw vbus command uses twinkie's current and voltage meter ability. As you can see, the laptop is pulling just around 2A of current at 4.885V from the Dell adapter. For more subjective evaluation of the cable : the cable's Type-C plug is quite good. It has good insertion and detatch feel in both directions. The cable itself is of the lightweight variety. In conclusion : This is a fine USB Type-C cable from Cable Matters. I was very impressed by their customer service and the speed at which they fixed the original defect in their product line. The cable itself is a great safe way to charge and data sync your new USB Type-C devices such as Nexus 6P/5X or Pixel devices. It is also future proof for future USB Type-C devices to come!