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    somedoucheEric Ravenscraft
    8/29/16 9:33am

    Aw, c’mon, Anker. You’re supposed to be the good one.

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      The Artist Formerly Known As...somedouche
      8/29/16 9:37am

      I thought that too, but it looks like they’re going to give a refund and a free cable to those affected. So maybe they’re taking care of customers? Of course, that’s not much help if one’s phone gets fried.

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      SniPerfidysomedouche
      8/29/16 9:41am

      I’m sure they’ll take care of anyone that’s been affected by this. Their customer service is excellent. Can you think of any other major manufacturer that has never had a problem? This is the first I’ve seen of an Anker defect besides that one time with their chargers having port issues which they replaced free of charge. (Pun intended)

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    ImmaLionEric Ravenscraft
    8/29/16 12:48pm

    This problem with USB Type-C cables and adapters will quickly become a huge shitstorm in the next few years... there’s a whole bunch of defective cables in the market, and several of them have problems that won’t be noticed right away because it’s only triggered by certain scenarios.

    Most of them are not exactly like this Anker cable... just manufacturers using a resistor with wrong value. But it’s impossible to detect without testing equipment, costumers won’t be able to tell wether their cables are good or bad ‘till it’s too late.

    Worst of all, in the perfect storm scenario, they could fry devices on both ends. You can imagine how pissed some people will get when their brand new smartphone and their laptop gets fried all at once, for instance.

    It’s a hassle, but for now, I recommend everyone to just stick to cables and chargers that came with the smartphone, and never use them for other phones or scenarios they weren’t intented for. You’ll at least be able to return the phone should something happen. Just so people know, this also doesn’t eliminate the possibility that even the cable that came with the phone being bad for some scenarios... OnePlus 2 came with a bad cable that had the bad resistor problem, if reports are correct.

    There’s also a Google engineer testing a whole bunch of cables on Amazon, so if you absolutely need getting a new one, I suggest googling this

    Nope, he was actually the one who found out about it... Benson Leung is the name.

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      Charlotte ShenImmaLion
      8/30/16 4:18am

      I thought Nathan K is the name. Isn’t he the one who found out the anker problem?

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      ImmaLionCharlotte Shen
      8/30/16 11:52am

      Yes, my bad! I tried to edit again and couldn’t...

      Benson Leung is the Google engineer who has been testing a whole bunch of Amazon cables... but Nathan K is the one who found out about the problem in the post.

      Reply
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    BdgBillEric Ravenscraft
    8/29/16 11:21am

    “Whoa, sorry. We are going to give you a 100% refund and give you a free product later when we get the problem fixed”

    Of course it would have been better if the problem never existed in the first place but Anker’s response is about as good as it gets for tech companies standing behind their products.

    I have been a big fan of Anker ever since they helped me live through my insanely battery draining Galaxy Nexus back in the day. I used to leave the house in the morning with the phone charged 100% and 2 fully charged Anker batteries in my coat pocket.

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    iCurmudgeonEric Ravenscraft
    8/30/16 3:45am

    Augh! Why do I get the feeling that the USB-C spec was a mistake?

    No more quick-charge chargers for me. If my LG G5 needs to be charged I’m using a standard charger and micro-USB cable with a micro-USB-to USB C adapter. I can wait for it to SAFELY charge.

    Clearly USB-C’s spec suffers from excessive complexity if manufacturers are having this much trouble with it!

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    zdkfocusEric Ravenscraft
    8/29/16 3:00pm

    So, presumably, if mine has never been used to charge anything other than my Nexus 5X, I should be safe?

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    KingapEric Ravenscraft
    8/29/16 9:38am

    This is exactly why I feel like it’s still too soon for the massive transition to USB C

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      ChrisKingap
      8/29/16 10:33am

      Catch-22, they won’t start building these cables and working on support until people start using it.

      Reply
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    a113ethanEric Ravenscraft
    8/29/16 11:24am

    I believe this, I used to use their external batteries, but all of them fried my phones battery and my tablets. Good company, but not all their products.

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    DylanEric Ravenscraft
    8/29/16 10:43am

    I have no proof, but I just lost a Nexus 5x to what I think was a faulty cable. Wasn’t using stock cable and the phone fried the internal flash memory.

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    DakeEric Ravenscraft
    8/29/16 2:24pm

    I bought a 3 pack of the Aukey branded cables, I hope they’re ok. I have one plugged into my computer’s USB permanently. I have one in my Aukey USB car adapter, and one plugged into an older, non-fast-charging-style power block. All of those are limited voltage-wise on the providing end.

    Reply