Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Please see the end of this review for an update. These cables are starting to fail on me. Well, I didn't find any reviews on the Mediabridge charging cable, but I ordered anyway since Amazon stands behind their products. No risk. The cables arrived and work great. I tested the cables with my meter and found that the data lines are dead shorted -- zero ohms. This enables the cable to provide maximum charge current regardless of the USB port it's plugged in to. Be certain your USB ports can supply full charge current for your device before plugging in anything! This particular charger cable should work fine for the Nexus 7, a very picky device to charge. It works great on my wife's Sanyo Katana Eclipse phone, a phone that has been difficult to charge on anything but the factory charger. With this cable, I can charge the phone anywhere there's a USB port. The price is right, and the quality is typical Mediabridge: spectacular. I bought 5 of these, so I'll always have a dedicated charging cable available to me. One important feature of this cable is that the ends are colored grey to differentiate the cable from a regular USB cable. It would have been nice to print the word "Charge" or "Power" on the cable ends, but as long as you know that the cable with the grey ends is for charging only, it's not a big deal. UPDATE: I've found that this wonderful cable lets me charge any micro USB device just about anywhere. I can charge my phone on the PS3, Xbox, laptop, car lighter USB adapter, and everything else I've tried. My phone always reports that it's charging on AC (maximum rate). I guess I'll need to buy a few more of these cables for the kids. UPDATE 2/12/13: Well, I guess this is what I get for being the first one to review a product. Out of the 8 Mediabridge charger cables that I've bought (5 from Amazon and 3 direct from Mediabridge), 2 have failed. They both failed the same way, and within 2 weeks of starting to use them; the barbs on the microUSB end get smashed down or otherwise fail to stick out, causing the microUSB end of the cable to literally fall out of the socket. When the first cable failed, I wrote to Mediabridge about it. They asked me for the invoice number, which I sent, and they mailed me a replacement cable. When the second cable failed, I wrote to Mediabridge about it, making sure to include the invoice number. This time, they wanted me to cut the cable in half and send them a photo of the cable after being cut. I'll post a photo here too, since the close-up shows the tiny barbs that failed on both cables. I'm pretty disappointed in Mediabridge's quality level for these charging cables right now. I have literally dozens of their cables in use, though nearly all are semi-permanently installed, thereby avoiding the issue with the plug retention teeth failing. I'm not sure why the teeth fail. I've been using the same OEM HTC charging cable for nearly 2 years, and it's been plugged into and unplugged from my phone well over 1000 times. The microUSB teeth on the HTC cable still grip fine. The Mediabridge cable microUSB teeth seem to fail after about 60 plug/unplug cycles. Review dropped from 5 to 2 stars based on the plug failures. I gave Mediabridge an extra star for relatively fast and painless replacement of the failed cables. Update 3/20/13: Guys, don't get me wrong... I like Mediabridge products and still buy them, but it seems I ran into a bad batch of their charging cables. I'm sure they've probably fixed the problem by now. I know firsthand that providing a consistently high quality product is a never-ending battle, and Mediabridge has quickly replaced the two cables that I've had fail. A mistake is only a mistake if you don't learn from it. Update 8/20/13: Well, this is interesting: when I bought the cables, Mediabridge offered a lifetime warranty. Now their site claims only a 1-year warranty, but I just read a post from another Amazon customer who said that Mediabridge refused to honor the warranty, saying there was nothing they could do. I guess the many Amazon reviews simply chronicle the rise and fall of a promising company. I typically value customer service above product performance, so this is a loss indeed. I have many Mediabridge cables, all of which now appear to be warranted for a year or less. It's so hard to find good, dependable cable makers these days. :/