I’ve been tossing cables lately. There’s a lot of older devices (mini USB and USB-b) that either don’t exist or don’t work anymore. And most of my non-phone stuff is micro so I’ve still got 3 flavors of cable hanging around (thanks work!).
This is my second USB-C based phone. I’ve had no jack problems. But I’ve been using HTC flagships for, well forever. Last one was a 10, which didn’t hold up well in other ways. And I thought the HTC One had a bad jack. Turned out to be a micro cable that broke in a unique way. The jack had separated inside the plug so it looked fine, but would only charge if you held it like a phone with a broken port. The jack fell off the cable when I gently jiggled, stuck in the port. I have no idea how it held up to weeks of being pulled out of the jack in that state.
New phone is a Pixel, so it should hold up well. My cousin has the original Pixel and its still going strong, no problems of any kind after 4 years. Might as well be a new phone as far as he’s concerned. A bit why I switched. The HTCs were always mostly stock Android on durable hardware with a smooth UI and not a lot of bullshit. I’ve always gotten at least 4 years out of a phone. The HTC 10 was not that, and barely made it to 3. But the Pixel is the new that. So here’s hoping jack problems are not in my future. Did have a Blackberry with port problems years ago though.
I may toss most of the micro cables and grab some adapters, because they’re all over the place in various states of still functional disrepair. And its not a lot of stuff at this point. A Bluetooth speaker, a discount fire tablet I picked up to jail break and spit media at a Chrome Cast but haven’t been using for a while. The Chrome Cast, which is also not in heavy use. But frustratingly both the new mouse and the new xbox controller I just bought are both micro, despite being very recent models. So at least a few micros are staying around.
They’re not terribly durable. And I wouldn’t really expect them to be. The braided cable thing is about the sort of braided cables that have steel or other metal braid protecting the cable with fabric braid over it. Or Kevlar, ballistic nylon and other really durable materials. It comes out of pro audio cables where strong braided coverings are often the most durable gig/field cables. Rubber with that sort of durability would be to thick and hard to work with.
Regular fabric or nylon is still gonna be thinner than rubber/plastic insulation, but it’ll be weaker. So a lot of the braided cables are just pretending to be the reinforced kind of cable. So good braided cables are, but cheap braided cables are definitely not durable.
