From my inbox

Secret Santa has sent the last item from my wishlist, and it is insanely great. The Mcdodo CA-882 Digital Pro 100W PD Fast Charge Type-C to Type-C Data Cable carries 5 A of power which takes you to 100 W with 20 V. This is however not the perfect data cable, because it carries data only at USB 2.0 speeds: 480 Mbit/s. Thunderbolt goes up to 40.000 MBit/s.

What makes this cable insanely great is the display with tells you how much juice is actually flowing through the cable. When you charge an iPad Pro with a 65W USB PD charger, it will pull 40 W through the Thunderbolt port, but only 24 W through the Magic Keyboard port. If you need to quickly charge your iPad Pro, always go through the main port, not the auxiliary charging port on the keyboard.

As you know by now, I like to knock on the claim that USB-C will put an end to the multitude of chargers we own, and that is simply not true. Here I am charging the Lenovo Tab P13 Pro with the same charger that allowed the iPad Pro to pull 40 W of power and I am only getting 18 W. Replacing this standard charger with the one provided by Lenovo will take it up to 30 W, because the tablet negotiates a special 10 V and 3 A mode. Without digging deeper I assume that it was only getting 2 A with 9 V from the RealPower charger. In both cases that tablet was claiming it was rapid charging.

This is a quality Nylon braided cable and it’s only 12 Euro. Highly recommended. Now I need to find something else to put on my wishlist. And it’s all because of you, Secret Santa. Thank you! You made me happy today.