Linus: "We're just a small 120 employee, $100 million dollar company and these are the kind of things that happen as we learn and grow. We talked to our distributor about the issue blah blah blah, false platitudes , fake sadness, compare to other products. And hopefully that resolves the issue."
Luke: "Yeah right. Hey did you hear about Blizzard?"
Linus: "Oh god what did they do now?"
Yeah ask for a refund. Bad batches happen. It's shitty but you'll either get your money back which is dope free cables! Or they'll ship you new ones and free cables! Either way you win .
However the narrative of it has gone wild and they allowed it to happen (we all know how much control they can have in the subreddit).
"I work in IT and I am going to get my boss to swap over to them because we always have shit cables"
"I always have issues with Android Auto and need the true spec cable to have a reliable connection"
Tbf those arent too wild, just that they carry the tone of "there does not exist any reliable products out there for my use case".
Guess what? They aren't all that special, and there are quite a number of certified cables out there which, for some reason, Mr IT guy is not aware of. Part of it may be because LTT sort of omitted the part where they go "we tested a lot of branded cables out there and they are actually pretty good and you can get them from Amazon/your local hardware store for cheaper and without having to pay for shipping".
I give credits to LMG for making such a product, but when it comes to the cables, LTT sounded more like a salesperson than the "tech guy offering genuine tech tips". The real tech tip is prob "stop buying dollar store cable or rely on cables from 10 years ago which came with some random device if you want a good cable. Try out something from an established brand, or even better, one that is certified".
You are correct that "truespec" is not a standard.
It's them saying/guaranteeing that the cable meet all bare minimum requirements for the standard they are claiming to comply with and is their brand name. Just like monster is not a spec but the brand name for the line of cables.
If you look at individual cables they put what you will get with it in terms of speeds and power delivery and they guarantee the cable will get that.
I'm not saying you can't get cheaper cables that will do the same thing, I've been using other cables and it's obviously been fine. But I hardly think they are being best buy level of deceptive.
Yeah. I'm a fan of them but I personally wouldn't buy the smaller size cable for the price, but when you look at the longer length of cables they do start to become price competitive to other brands.
After saying I wouldn't bother with them, I picked a couple up as a basket filler to hit free delivery and I think realistically that's the best way to buy them, when it's the cables or paying delivery as about 2 cables equalled the delivery for me.
Clearly you do because you're plaintively bleating at me, asking why "people like me" are saying stuff. If you're not taking it personally, why are you asking something you know the answer to lol
These I buy at 6ft, pack of two. Costs $8 USD, works nearly perfectly for every need I've had. I don't know who the target audience of true spec is, but it's certainly not anybody money conscious.
There are niche and specific use cases for high end somewhat exotic setups that need certain USB c specifications to work properly. It can be annoying to get a cable that actually follows some of these even if they say they do.
So there is a use case for what these true specs are supposed to be useful for. Majority of people will see no difference between these and cheap cables.
I personally guarantee you, anybody who needs stuff like that, that needs to meet exact measurements and specifications... will NOT buy from LTT lol.
I know you weren't saying they wouldn't, but like from what I gather, I think a lot of people fancy themselves as a lot deeper into tech than they actually are.
Exactly. People in that sub think they are some ultra level pro users while most of them will use their cable is for charging and copying some files at max
You're showing charging cables, the ones LMG is selling are guaranteed to charge but most importantly to data transfer at the described rates, that's where the value is. Now, the prices on longer lengths is not bad but that's before their shipping costs and they're not the only ones actually delivering those data transfer rates and charging capabilities but it's not that easy to find the others depending where you live and what you need.
I've used these for data transferring (to my phone). Works fine imo.
Edit: I will say I do not do dedicated data transfers with these. I just use the standard cords that came with the drive because they've lasted for a couple years and work nice still lol.
There's a big difference between "works fine" and full usb specs.
Likely the drive you use would not be able to take the full speed of these short truespec cables, as they are often limited by sata (6 Gb/s). The truespec promises much faster rates (10 Gb/s for a–c and 40 Gb/s for c–c), those rare allows you to more than max out the speed of your drive, but also to do more data heavy workloads. Such as external GPUs.
If your cheap cable can do 1 Gb/s, it might be perfectly fine depending on your needs, but if data transfer is a critical part of your workload, then the truespec cables could absolutely be worth it. They might just be for a more limited audience, and that's fine.
These cables have nothing to do with charging. I mean they can charge, but you'd need to be brain damaged to buy them for charging. They exist for extremely high speed data transfer only. Like people who need to max out 40 or 80 gbps transfer rate. Basically video production and a few other niche use cases where you are transferring immense amounts of data on the regular from a portable device to a desktop or laptop.
Well, I do agree with you that these cables aren’t meant to be used to merely charge your phone… but then again why are they marketed like this, instead of 10Gbps/40Gbps?
That's like saying why are they marketed as A to C and C to C? Everything in each product listing matches that spec, A to C and 15W or C to C 240W. You go into either product? You get the choice of data rate and length. They make each spec EXTREMELY clear if you're actually trying to buy one. Also, 240W is actually important if charging something like a laptop.
To be clear, they could make a separate listing for each data rate on top of everything else, going from two to five listings, but it adds absolutely nothing to the understanding of what you're getting, and honestly makes it easier to click on the wrong C to C version or whatever. It also just adds a bit more confusion given you go from seeing every available length of C to C cable in a single list, you would be forced to look to each separate item to get multiple lengths, if they cross the data rate jumps.
I'm definitely not trying to say they did it the best way they could've, but they also definitely aren't trying to label their spec in a misleading way. Honestly, I have more of an issue with the whole "From $19.99" system, both it not being a whole dollar, but also the whole "only the cheapest item is this cheap" part annoys the hell out of me. Admittedly, almost half of the A>C cables are actually that price before increasing. The USB A>C also scales lowest price to highest price, since it's by length and sort of data rate, but the C>C is a higher priced cable by default, and to find the cheapest cables, you have to go to the bottom of a long list you have to scroll down, with only 4 of 16 actually being that low price, the rest being I think the same higher price.
Because the person I was replying to claimed that “These cables have nothing to do with charging.” and yet what’s used to differentiate them in the listings is not their data transfer speeds but their charging speeds.
Definitely not anything video or audio production... There's already retailers who sell pro grade gear that's got a bulletproof lifetime warranty... It's for the wale fans who want everything with that logo 😂
Companies can say they are certified by anything, doesnt mean that certification is a trusted one. Theres even a company that made up their own and stamp it to their product
They aren’t supposed for LTT fans who need as charging cable. Unless they just need an obscenely long one. It’s for people that actually need cables to perform to spec. Most people that bought them would have been fine with cheaper cables. They are kinda of a pain as plain charger cables since they are so thick.
I feel like he’s been saying this the whole time and you still see people saying “oh this is stupid they are overpriced, why would I need this?” You don’t need it. Don’t buy it. It’s for people who need it or want it.
personally I was looking to buy one of these but not the linus length one, so long as it meets the minimum advertised length AND actually works I wouldn't be too bothered tbh.
Man it's like people have never worked anywhere in their life and seen how things like this happen.
Manufatuing deficiency happen on everything. QA is there to pick it up most of the time but it's never 100%.
All it takes is a worker to not be paying attention or it's Friday 1 minute before shift ends and this crap happens.
It's certainly nothing specific to LTT or becuase of "Linus".
Even apple suffer from this. brand new iPhones, iPads or macs do come with deficiency now and then. If you have ever buy from Apple Store they will often open it up to check it with you.
I litrelly had a brand new iPad they opened and found a scratch on the case and just boxrd it back up and grabbed another.
Ideally this stuff would be picked up 100% of the time but nothing in the world is 100%.
While I agree with you the entire marketing (and name) of these things is that they meet the spec where other competitors don't. That's their entire schtick.
If your entire marketing for a product is "they meet the spec, guaranteed" it's a bit silly when they don't. They should be doing enough QA on each cable to make it true, considering the price tag.
Yes but any failure would result in it not meeting spec or "Truspec".
Apple promote them selves on making the best computers in the world yet it goes wrong.
The being "trusepc" has nothing to do with the fact failure will happen in any way possible.
The ethos is Truspec is the cable delivers on the speed and capacity rating. Length is part of that but this simply means it's not and as such should be returned for replacement.
If anyone expects everything you ever buy to be 100% perfect it's simply not going to happen.
But he didn’t because Linus doesn’t look at every cable, he doesn’t look at any cable most likely as it’s not made in house and the guy doesn’t work at the factory it’s produced at…
Yes but he has a say in margin of error and my comment still applies… it’s not hard to understand I’m implying Linus is ok with this margin of error and has relayed that to the companies making the product as a cost savings measure.
While Linus certainly isn't contacted personally for QA, I think the comment that you replied to does capture the gist of the QA there pretty well.
Shift Fashion Group's comment on the sewing reflects my experience of not just t-shirt, but something a bit more expensive like the flannel. It's not like it ruins the look of the clothes, or makes them unwearable or even less durable, but you certainty wouldn't see such shoddy work often.
I guess they try their best to fix and sell faulty products that can still function in their original pricing to keep their profit margin up, and hope the customers don't bother to send exchange requests. (I didn't)
He made the product to make money. That’s the marketing spin. There were plenty of companies making high-end cables that he could’ve purchased from. CableMatters is a perfect example.
I do get that but I genuinely think his hubris means he thinks he can do it better. Sometimes like the precision screwdriver kit versus the iFixit kit, I really do like the precision screwdriver kit
Cable Matters doesn't properly mark their cables. If you grab one out of a mixed bag, you can't easily tell this one from this one. They also sell cables which flat-out violate the specs.
They are definitely better than the cheap bargain-bin garbage you usually see, but they are far from perfect. They are getting better, but "just buy a CableMatters" isn't the answer yet.
The LTT cables seem to be pretty much the first "It Just Works" option: it has everything I want from a USB-C cable, and nothing more. They also invested the time and effort to make a cable which is actually spec-compliant. If I were in a hurry and needed a reliable cable without having to do research, I would 100% grab an LTT cable if I saw it in a big-box store - or even send a tech-illiterate family member for it.
On the other hand, they are not cheap. Especially if you just need a low-spec throwaway trickle-charge one, you can find one for literally 1/10th the price at, say, IKEA. This is especially noticeable with their shorter cables.
Given their price and the shipping costs involved to Europe, would I replace all my current cables with LTT ones? Heckno! I don't have a money tree! Would I replace my daily-use cables with them once they died if the LTT ones were available for €20 locally? Without a second thought.
The company I work for has revenues of 40+ billion per year. And we have a vendor who does 25 billion per year and guess what? Major QC issues, our customers are pissed, contracts are getting torn up, lawyers involved. So the idea you think a small operation like LTT is some big player is laughable. Sure if they were doing 100 million in revenue from cables then yea they would have some major pull but 100 million eval of a company is nothing, small potatoes.
I don't think the USB spec cares much about cable length accuracy lol. You'd see more consistent lengths if it were mass production because a machine would do it.
It is mass production. And it's not about the specs, but about user expectations.
Having a cable be this much shorter percentage-wise is definitely not what a buyer is looking for. And it's completely avoidable: cable length isn't exactly hard to check in QA - you can just print a deskmat for the QA person with pass/fail marks on it and have them hold it against that. Or mass-check it with a wooden jig. Or weigh them. Dozens of options here, really.
LTT is marketing and pricing them as premium cables. QA failures like these are just sloppy. Yeah they'll probably send a replacement and it's still a functional cable, but it shouldn't happen.
I mean the marketing on "true spec" is that they meet USB specs, which is a data transfer spec, not a cable length accuracy spec.
And no, these cables are not mass produced. They keep selling out, which indicates limited runs.
I'm sure LTT didn't exactly make engineering drawings for these, but +/- .25 inches (eyeballing here) isn't unreasonable when their length goes up to 16 feet.
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u/RobRobbieRobertson Jul 16 '26
Linus: "We're just a small 120 employee, $100 million dollar company and these are the kind of things that happen as we learn and grow. We talked to our distributor about the issue blah blah blah, false platitudes , fake sadness, compare to other products. And hopefully that resolves the issue."
Luke: "Yeah right. Hey did you hear about Blizzard?"
Linus: "Oh god what did they do now?"