USB a/b cables

[donecweb]

I have just recently found a need to buy a new USB printer cable. I found out that for some reason some manufactures of these cables have doubled the price and most have jumped the price to almost 4 times the older prices. They are labeling them as USB 2.0 High Speed cables. I guess they don't know that the cable can not tell the difference in the signal it carries so there is no such thing as a USB 2.0 cable as all USB cables are 1.0 and up to present speeds. You can still find USB a/b cables as low as $6 if you look hard. How do you feel about this?

[Menard]

Pretty much the same ol' marketing ploy to claim functionality with something, even though that functionality was always there.

These cheap portable stereo speakers that plugged into a Walkman reached a point where they could not even be given away; now they call them iPod speakers and sell them for 4 or more times as much.

Funniest darn thing I used to see was marketing A/C Powerstrips as Windows 2000 compliant. Like A/C outlets are going to know the difference.

Good ol' American maketing; it's not a lie, it's just not the whole truth either.

The darndest thing is that people fall for this right and left.

BTW, Big Lots has been a good place to find inexpensive USB cables for me in the past.

[Andy]

I don't like the idea of not including a cable with a printer but it could be assumed that most people will have one.

USB 2.0 is a higher data rate (12mbs) than USB 1.0 (2mbs) so I would expect that some cables made to support USB 2.0 would have better shielding between the wires to justify the higher cost.

12mps is a high data rate with EMC issues so the cost increase may be due to the testing house fees and certification for EMC compliance. If you look at the plastic cover of the cable, it may have some marking on it for the EMC tests such as VDE, CSA, FCC. Cheap cables may not have been tested and officially approved so they will have a cable cover devoid of such markings.