[Pxtl]

Unfortunately Amazon's UI is actually pretty hostile to this, too.

I was trying to buy simple USB cables... After a pair of tablets were destroyed by a bad USB cable, I'm picky about usb micro cables. So I tried to search on Amazon for usb a to micro cables...

And the brand filter didn't list many of the brands I was seeing in the resultset. Like, I know you have Monoprice and Belkin cables, I'm looking right at them! Why can I only filter to Chinese no-name brands and Amazonbasics?

[14]

This comment caught my attention are bad cables really destroying your tablets? I ask because I literally power all my phones and tablets with cords I bought at the dollar store. Never had any problems. Have I just been lucky?

[Bedon292]

Not sure about Micro, but a few years back a Google employee posted a bunch of info about bad USB C cables. Sadly I think it was on Google+ and gone now, but his reviews are still on Amazon [1]. There were certainly some really bad ones, missing resistors and things, so its quite possible on C at least.

[1] https://smile.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AFLICGQRF6...

[Tempest1981]

Maybe Benson Leung?

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/225719-amazon-bans-che...

Try https://usbccompliant.com/

[14]

Well I guess I will consider myself lucky. I learned my lesson with an amazon power cord for my Lenovo laptop. It charges fine but the casing around the electronics melted due to it getting so hot. It is my kids laptop and could have literally started a fire on him. I bought a new one from Staples and now won’t buy any electronics like that from amazon.

[Pxtl]

They physically mangled the connector itself, so the tablets could no longer charge. They were 4-year-old Galaxy Tab 7" so not worth repairing.

Basically I had a usb cable where the metal of the connector bent in just the right way that it scraped off the contacts inside the tablets' female port.

[cratermoon]

That mechanical connection is definitely prone to failure. I've had phones where the charging port was physically worn enough that I could plug them in and charge them OK but bump it just a bit and it would disconnect. Wireless charging isn't quite there yet but I'd be happy to get rid of all cables.

[jniedrauer]

I used an off-brand USB cable for my Garmin watch once, and it wouldn't power on for a week afterwords. I have no idea what strange software/hardware fault could explain that, but it spontaneously recovered after a week of being dead. I'm not willing to risk using off-brand cables since then.

[jquery]

Yeah you’ve been lucky. I only buy brand name cables now after getting burned.