Smartphone Data Cable

A fundamental part of any smartphone experience is the mobile accessories that you use with it. A good data cable can be the difference between a fast, efficient charge and a slow, tedious experience. Which wire to purchase is just as important as deciding on a power brick.

Types of Data Cables

The majority of data cables fall into one of four types:

USB Type A cable (or Android data cable)
USB Type C cable
Lightning cable (or iPhone cable)
OTG cable

These cables have different capabilities, and differ mainly based on the devices they are used on.

Type A or Android Data Cable

This used to be the most widespread form of data and charging cable for Android devices. The majority of cheap or affordably priced devices in this category still commonly use it.

The cable is often simply referred to as the android data cable. This is the cable that popularized the idea that a single cable can be used for both charging and data transfer. The defining feature of these cables physically is the unidirectional connector, which means it needs to be connected the right way up.

In terms of transfer speeds and charging, this usb cable is slower than its counterpart. Charging is usually at a very basic 5W or thereabouts. Transfer speeds go up to around 480 Mbps on USB 2.0 and up to 5 Gbps on 3.0.

USB Type C Cable

This is the newer, faster big brother of the basic Android cable. So, more or less all new Android devices that come out have this as their main charging cable. Physically, this cable is a reversible connector, meaning you can connect it in either direction without issue.

A Type C cable offers many benefits over its predecessor. The biggest for most people is that this cable has the capability to charge devices much faster than ever before. This fast charging cable can support up to 100W of power delivery, making it great not only for phones but laptops and other devices as well.

This USB cable also supports much higher data transfer speeds. A big benefit of this is that this fast charging cable can often be used as a display cable to replace much larger cables.

Lightning or iPhone Cable

The lightning cable is Apple’s version of a data transfer cable that it made for use on its devices. This is why this device is also often called the iPhone cable. As these phones tend to be expensive, this wire also usually has the highest data cable price in Pakistan.

Interestingly, these cables are actually not as good as Type C cables in most areas. Interestingly many Apple products come with a Lighting to Type C cable for this exact reason. By default lightning has slower charging speeds than the other cable.

Data transfer speeds on this iPhone mobile charger cable are comparable more to Type A cables. So the majority of these cables tend to transfer close to the USB 2.0 standard at 280 Mbps.

OTG Cable

This cable is different from the previous cables mentioned as its purpose is purely data transfer and cannot do charge. An OTG cable’s main purpose is to give you the ability to connect devices with full-sized USB connectors to your phone.

You can use an OTG cable to connect a USB drive to your phone to transfer data back and forth. You can even use them to connect peripherals like mice and keyboards to your phone. This gives you added functionality usually limited to personal computers.