Worthwhile to buy a 3rd party ipad 3 charger cable?

martin57

Hi folks,


We have an ipad 3 and need to get a good ipad charger usb cable.


I bought one locally not an apple one think it cost £2.99 but it takes forever to charge.


Daughter got a few on ebay but on hooking it up it says not compatable.


Just wondering is it just better to pay the extra money and buy the apple usb charger cable?


Thanks
Martin57

AlecEiffel

Yeah get an Apple one, or a licensed 3rd party cable (Belkin etc) as they will work as required. Unfortunately cheap cables are a false economy for Apple products.

Messa

AlecEiffel wrote: »

Yeah get an Apple one, or a licensed 3rd party cable (Belkin etc) as they will work as required. Unfortunately cheap cables are a false economy for Apple products.

To be honest this is the same with any cheap cable , the charging rate and/or data rate can suffer even if it appears to work fine. They really are a false economy.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1ynwb4/is_your_android_device_charging_slowly_and_you/

Sooler

If you can afford the iPad why scrimp on the cable?

Browntoa

had cheap cables , either failed to work , failed to fully charge or break after a week or so

same applies to the charger plugs , look for genuine ones

InsideInsurance

For an iPad 3 you shouldnt get a message about non-licensed parts, only the newer devices with a Lightning connection do you get this as the cable as chips built into it which as well as allowing the inverted plug in also allow apple to detect if they're genuine or not. On the older 30pin connector this doesnt exist.

For my iPad 3/ iPod Classic I have a mixture of genuine and 3rd party cables and never noticed any difference at all. I concur that they do tend to be lower quality and more prone to breaking but I evidently have been lucky

For our iPhone 5/5s we also have a mix of 3rd party and genuine cables but the 3rd party ones are much more hit and miss than the 30pin ones and you do get the warning each time you plug it in. That said, I think I paid around £1 per 3rd party cable and given my wife's habit of leaving them in coffee shops etc its cheaper to give her them then the £15 or so for a genuine Apple one.

Moneymaker

Beware fakes and non-Apple chargers. They can burn your house down!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqeHv8pDue8

securityguy

The point about charging iPads is that they (even the thirty pin ones) do a magic dance with the charger to get about 12W of charging power (2.1A of current) . The iPad charger has some magic resistors across its data lines, and if the iPad spots those, it draws more than the 500mA specified in the USB standard. Apple USB ports on more recent Macs do the same thing, but only to offer about 1A. If the iPad doesn't see the resistors, if sets its own impedance in the standard way to draw the permitted 500mA. It's a neat trick: if the charger is standard, it pulls 500mA, but if the charger has the extensions, it pulls 1A or 2.1A.

In order to charge an iPad at full speed, a charger needs (a) to be able to deliver 2.1A@5V and (b) have the appropriate resistors across the data lines. The easiest way to achieve this is to buy an Apple charger, because the third party ones that actually work aren't hugely cheaper (if that: Belkin want 35 quid, when the Apple one is only 15...)

InsideInsurance

securityguy wrote: »

The point about charging iPads is that they (even the thirty pin ones) do a magic dance with the charger to get about 12W of charging power (2.1A of current) . The iPad charger has some magic resistors across its data lines, and if the iPad spots those, it draws more than the 500mA specified in the USB standard. Apple USB ports on more recent Macs do the same thing, but only to offer about 1A. If the iPad doesn't see the resistors, if sets its own impedance in the standard way to draw the permitted 500mA. It's a neat trick: if the charger is standard, it pulls 500mA, but if the charger has the extensions, it pulls 1A or 2.1A.

In order to charge an iPad at full speed, a charger needs (a) to be able to deliver 2.1A@5V and (b) have the appropriate resistors across the data lines. The easiest way to achieve this is to buy an Apple charger, because the third party ones that actually work aren't hugely cheaper (if that: Belkin want 35 quid, when the Apple one is only 15...)

All well and good but we were talking about cables not chargers

Big_Graeme

Sooler wrote: »

If you can afford the iPad why scrimp on the cable?

Because £15 for a cable is a rip off?

hollie.weimeraner

Big_Graeme wrote: »

Because £15 for a cable is a rip off?

So pay £2-99 and risk your house burning down? :laugh: