There’s a lot to like about the Amazon Basics USB 3.1 Gen 1 USB-C cable. This 6-foot cable features rubber sleeving and hefty wires that give it a substantive feel without the stiffness you get from some cables.
Its Amazon Basics logo helps prevent you from mixing up this cable with the generic cables you have laying around, and the SuperSpeed logo assures you it’s fast for data transfers.
In our testing, we were able to able to push the limits of our USB 3.2 10Gbps SSD and could also drive our 240Hz 1080p panel. It also was capable of driving our high-performance Thunderbolt 3 drive at its 20Gbps data rate but not at its 40Gbps data rate—which is expected of a 6-foot cable. And despite its USB 5Gbps rating, we could hit 10Gbps speeds anyway which says the cable’s signal integrity is good despite its length. Why not label it USB 10Gbps? Amazon is sticking to the rules which say a 10Gbps isn’t supposed to work on a 6 foot cable.
Also oddly, Amazon specifically claims there’s “no alt-mode” support for this cable so driving a monitor won’t work. Except it does just fine since the alt-mode on USB-C just uses the wires included for the higher-speed USB 3.1 data transfers to run the monitor. We could even drive our high-performance Thunderbolt drive at 20Gbps transfer rates so way to sell yourself short Amazon.
The only real disappointment with the cable is charging is limited to 3 amps which means it tops out at 60-watt charge rates. That’s fine for a Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Pro 13, but not enough for a Dell XPS 15 or MacBook Pro 16. In fact, that’s the primary reason we didn’t give the cable the nod for best brand-name cable pick.
It does carry Amazon’s name which has value to some, but at $19, it’s hardly a steal. With that said, this is a fine cable, but there are indeed ones with more capability too.
