At the time of our review, the Anker New Nylon 2-Pack was the number one best-selling USB-C cable on Amazon and it’s probably for good reason. At approximately $14 for a pair of 6ft USB-C to USB-C charging cables from a brand people trust, is a great value and, for most people looking to take on charging duties for phones, small laptops and tablets, you probably don’t need to read any further. Just click add to cart and continue. However, if you are someone looking for the caveats with this pair of Anker cables, read on.
The new 2-pack nylon cables are braided and Anker says they have been tested to 12,000 bend cycles, which is better than most budget charger cables advertise.
Inside, however, there’s not much special about the Anker New Nylon 2-Pack. As basic “charging cables” they are limited to a maximum of 60 watts. If you don’t know what a “charging cable” is and whether it can transfer data, know that Anker cables can do so, but only at minimum speeds of 480 MBps, which means it could take minutes to copy large files to your laptop or phone.
You should also know that the lack of faster data transfers also means that the Anker cable cannot be used to connect your laptop to a USB-C port for video.
The cables themselves are nothing special, other than the price and the Anker name. Internally, the construction is pretty basic with resistance, or the amount of electrical drag the cables exert on charging speed, too. The good news is that the Anker New Nylon cables are still better than the Amazon Basics cables we reviewed in 2020, which are even simpler and even more expensive at $10 per cable today.
While cable snobs may look down on the 60-watt charging performance, it doesn’t really matter much, as even a cable as average as these will work just fine to charge a Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Air phone, tablet, or laptop without any issues.
That means if we were a new USB-C iPhone owner looking to replace a stack of outdated Apple Lightning cables, we’d buy two or four of these Anker New Nylon cables and stop racking our brains trying to find the “best USB-C cable.”
The only reason to skip basic charging cables, like the Anker, would be for those who need to transfer large files or someone who wants to connect a monitor or a really fast USB-C drive to their computer.
For everyone else, are there better cables? Sure, see above. Higher quality, with lower resistance and faster data speeds and even more robust construction? Yes, all of that can be had… for more money. But truth be told, if all the cable is going to do is stay plugged into a charger waiting for you to come home and plug it in, who cares? The Anker does the job adequately and is from someone you trust and is priced right.
