It’s been almost a year since we told you How Next Generation USB-C cables will double the amount of power they can carry to 240W, which is enough to allow you to ditch the proprietary power brick of all but the best gaming laptops. Now, we see the first signs of life: the first USB-C 2.1 cables You have broken coverage With power up to 240W and up to 40Gbps of data. They’re from a Dutch manufacturer called Club3D (via Tom’s devices) Doesn’t sell cables on their website, and they don’t seem to be available yet in retail stores either.
This doesn’t mean you necessarily want to buy one just yet, of course! There aren’t any gadgets designed to use 240W of USB-C power yet, nor are there any 240W USB-C chargers, so these cables won’t give you anything new until the chicken and egg problem is resolved.
But that’s not the only caveat you should be aware of. As we feared last September When the USB Implementers Forum released its USB-C 2.1 Brand GuidelinesHowever, it appears that manufacturers are still free to mix and match the capabilities they will actually get from the cable.
Not only does Club3D have a 1-meter cable with 8K/60 video, 40Gbps of data, and 240W of power, but it also has a 2-meter cable with only half the data rate. And – get this – there’s a third, two-meter cable that only carries a paltry 480Mbit of data. (This guy is stuck at USB 2.0 speeds for a reason.)
Fortunately, it looks like these cables will be clearly labeled to let you know what capabilities they actually carry – thank you USB-IF for the labels! Hopefully other cable makers will follow suit. And it’s good to know that a 240W cable can extend to at least six and a half feet, although we hope to see longer cables as well. While 240W may seem like a lot of watts, a typical household AC outlet can put out thousands.
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