Needless to use a mobile phone to prepare a few data lines to facilitate different parts of the charge or transfer data.Iphone users buy data lines this matter more carefully for many reasons.On the one hand, Apple's original Lightning data cable is too expensive; the other Apple's data line quality is not very good, with a year, the skin aging yellow, the joints at the bad skin.
This time is not only the appearance of the more ugly, the exposed metal will leak, which allows accessory manufacturers have more opportunities.But an alarming number of brands, types of data lines, how to pick?
In addition to the Apple data cable for charging, but also for data transmission, because the Apple iOS ecosystem is closed, even if the phone accessories, but also through Apple's certification and support.MFi (Made for iOS) certification is Apple authorized manufacturers for the accessories A kind of permission sign.
There are many types of data lines on the market, which can be classified as MFi certified data lines and non-MFi certified data lines because of the difference between the authentication and the data line price range in the market. The cheapest is only a few bucks, Expensive to sell a few hundred pieces. Many people baffled, often choose cheap data line, a bad one. These cheap data line with them really there is no security risk?
In order to find out if there is any difference in the performance of the cheap Apple Lighting data cable, whether it will have a safety impact on the device or not, this time we bought 10 different price data cables 2 data lines. A total of 12 Lighting data cable with the original factory to be compared.
Through different test equipment, different data lines charging speed, transmission speed and the use of security in three areas for comparison and assessment.
What is MFi certification?
Apple data cable classification, the most heard about is the difference between MFi certification and non-MFi certification.MFi is an abbreviation for the Apple company Made for iOS acronym, is Apple's license to use accessories manufacturers license. Apple certified MFi accessories, the quality of their components, the production process has some restrictions, and Apple does not use certified parts failed to cause damage to the product warranty.
So MFi certification for Apple, is the quality control of accessories manufacturers to ensure that parts manufacturers to meet their own standards of production products, but also can be charged for certification costs.So MFi certified products are generally higher prices, with this Two reasons.
After the MFi certified Lighting data cable, Apple will provide MFi certified chip to ensure that the data cable can be used normally even after the device system is upgraded. Non-MFi certified data cable may not be able to be used when the iPhone or iPad is upgraded Identification, some with charging function will not support.
In addition, the chips provided by Apple can guarantee the stable output when charging, which is a protection for the device itself. Besides, Apple's warranty policy does not support the damage caused by using non-MFi certified accessories. Accessories without MFi certification are like the wild children in the Apple system Which makes MFi certified products will be higher gold content, promotion of these years, now recognition and recognition are very high, usually printed on the packaging MFi logo and logo.
Interested friends can also check through the Apple official website to support MFi certification brand: https://mfi.apple.com/MFiWeb/getAPS.action
Speaking of non-MFi Apple data lines, it was almost impossible to let a gun strike after a system upgrade in the past, but it seems there are some data lines on the market that use cracked chips to allow data line charging and data support even after device upgrades Read and write.But Apple still will not support such equipment caused damage to the after-sales service.
So what are the differences in performance between these MFi-certified Apple data lines and non-MFi-certified data lines on the market today? Let's start with the horizontal comparison of the 13 data lines below.
What apple lighting data lines do we all choose?
We know that Apple's original data cable is the most stable and the most recognized official accessories, so our test will also be all the deputy factory data line samples with the original comparison, but the reason for the skin material, easy to wear into the original factory A characteristic of the line.
Therefore, whether it is MFi certified or non-MFi certified factory data line, the price difference is mainly the distinction between materials and workmanship. Good data line core, anti-interference with better materials, on the one hand to ensure performance, the other It also guarantees durability.
Apple Lighting data cable manufacturers up to hundreds, we based on the electricity supplier to buy one of the 10 models.The main choice of sample is the MFi certification and non-MFi certification two.
Offline We purchased the same brand of MFi certification and non-MFi certification two products in the store.With the original Apple data cable, a total of 13 data lines involved in Hengping.
We numbered 13 data lines, numbers 1-7 for the Apple Lighting line labeled MFi, lines 8 for the Apple original line, and lines 9-13 for the Apple line without the MFi certification. In terms of the data line selected price of 7.9-99 yuan, with more than 10 times the difference.
The purchase price of the data line are lower than Apple's original price of 149 yuan, in line with most consumers choose the cost-effective data line appeal.
Judge the data line is good or bad: First, the data line is easy to use; Second, the data line is not durable, and then with the product price, we can conclude that this data line value is not worth buying this Hengping we first to answer Easy to use problem
What are the items we test?
1, MFi certification test
MFi certification of the market data line will be marked on the packaging certification mark, but in fact the product is not need to be verified.
We use the Apple Lighting line recognizer to verify the 13 data lines. It supports Apple data cable, charging cable, single head identification. Supports MFi certified original data line and cottage high imitation data line, can identify the chip to use the program and the manufacturer .
2, charging speed
Data lines have two functions, of which the most commonly used is charging, so the charging speed is a key judging point.We conducted a voltage and current and stability of the 13 data lines monitoring.
Higher current can get faster charging speed, and the voltage and current stability for the protection of mobile phone power management IC, battery and circuit components is very important. Charging current more stable data lines, indicating that the chip Material, better quality, less likely to burn your cell phone, or short circuit and other accidents.
This test we use the original iPad charging head, support 2A fast charge iPad mini2 as a load device. Charging head supports 5.2V / 2.4A output by connecting Power Z KM001 USB test table to record voltage and current data.
The Power Z KM001 USB Test Table is a compact but powerful test instrument from ChargerLAB in the field of charge-only charging, supporting a wide range of charging protocols and physical interfaces.
We connect in turn the plug-in board, charging head, KM001, data cable, iPad Mini 2, KM001 power can be displayed in real-time charging current voltage and current data and waveform data of two data.We power on for 30 seconds , Record the steady-state voltage, current and waveform, calculate the charging power data
3, data transfer speed
Apple device connected to the computer for data transmission, many times the speed of the speed, whether it will interrupt the data line and have a relationship.We record the transmission of fixed-size files by the time required to determine the data transmission performance of different data lines.
What is the result of the test?
MFi certified data line with or without virtual standard?
Apple Lightning wire recognizer display interface
Lightning wire identifier measured data including chip MFi certification, only certified products will show the original, rather than MFi certified products will display the cottage .Test appeared in a product display for Taiwan, in fact, the same high imitation chip the result of.
E75 and C48 are MFi hardware solutions, the majority of Apple's original line using the program E75, C48 are mostly licensed MFi chip program. Both programs are MFi certified chip solutions.But as shown in front of the words cottage, then said the use of Is to crack the chip E75 or C48 programs are non-MFi certification.
The rating shown is a Lightning wire identifier for the data line wire to make a rating, the actual for reference only, not as a comparison item here.
We extract several key data into the following table for your convenience.
MFi certification test results
The test results are indeed a bit surprising, 1, 3 samples are marked on the product page and packaging MFi certification logo, but the actual test results show that two non-MFi certified products, it is likely the virtual standard products, of course this The test results are only responsible for the sample, whether the true and false chips mixed, we can not verify.
In addition to the No. 1 and No. 3 samples, the rest of the data line test results and product labeling situation no difference is worth mentioning that the No. 1 and No. 3 data lines were 29.5 and 39.9 yuan, is our purchase with MFi certification The cheapest sample, it seems the price is too low certification line we need to stay a heart.
Does MFi certified data cable charge faster?
Charging test, we recorded the 13 data lines under steady charge voltage, current and waveform data.
▲ picture in the current voltage value of the label transfer
In order to facilitate the comparison of data, we organize the voltage and current data into power data, and draw the following comparison chart. Since the voltage and current change at all times, the following table is for reference only.
Charging speed estimation result
The actual calculated results, in addition to the sample No. 13, the other samples have very little difference between the charging power, indicating whether the data line after MFi certification charge speed and there is no significant difference in the sample 13 was significantly less power than other samples , Charging speed will be slower.
This is the result of using iPad mini2 which supports 2A fast charge, such as charging the iPhone, the current is relatively decreased, the charging speed difference will be smaller, so charging speed we can temporarily consider the current market non-MFi certified data cable, Nor does it limit the peak charge.
What is the difference between charging stability?
After 30 seconds of power-on, the fluctuation of the current waveform is relatively stable. We observe the charging current waveforms of the above 13 data lines to evaluate the stability. Level 1 shows that the waveform is stable and basically fluctuates, and level 2 shows small-amplitude waveform jitter , Level 3 shows significant charge current / voltage fluctuations in the image, while level 4 indicates that the charging voltage / current repeatedly bounces greatly and can easily damage the device. The higher the current stability, the better the data line performance.
Truth labs believe the data lines rated 1 or 2 are stable during charging and perform better, while ratings 3 and 4 are unstable and have poor performance Charge stability (voltage / current The rating scale is shown below:
Samples Nos. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 all met the requirements of both voltage and current stability. Two of the samples Nos. 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 received a rating of 1, Very good.
The remaining current fluctuations of larger products, are MFi certification testing non-MFi certified data line.This can be evidenced MFi certified data line to better protect the equipment.
It is worth noting that Apple original charger quality is already very high, if the use of brand-name cottage charger, the above test will only be further amplified charging current fluctuations, may result in excessive charging power may cause fever, or even burn the phone.
As the saying goes, a good horse with a good saddle, even bought a good data line, it is best coupled with excellent quality charger.
File transfer big difference?
1, non-MFi certified data cable connection is restricted?
File transfer test before we first verify one point: Only the MFi certified data cable can be connected to ensure that the computer does not make mistakes, upgrade the system can also be used normally. Non-MFi certified data cable connection problems, the device is not recognized after the system upgrade, Not available.
We carefully tested the 13 data lines, using the iPhone 8 Plus, the system upgrade to the latest iOS11.1. Including the front and back lighting connection. The result is that all can be properly connected, and the data can be uploaded and downloaded to the device.
This and the current non-MFi certified data line to use more to crack the chip has fool the Apple device to achieve data transmission and Apple since iOS7, non-MFi certified accessories restrictions have been liberalized, so most of the new program Non-MFi certified data cable can be connected to the device and the computer.
2, the transmission speed performance how?
We use the iPhone 8 Plus, with the MacBook Pro 2016 15-inch version of the file transfer speed test, transfer software to iTunes, transfer file size of 1.72GB. Each data line repeat write, delete step 5 times, with a stopwatch record write time , The results take five times the average of the test results.
The test results were not unexpected, the file transfer speed of the 13 samples are very close, only the sample number 9 slightly slower transfer speed, but the gap is actually very small. Here we also remind you readers, although MFi certification line and the cottage line in large File read and write speeds are not equal, but some poor quality cottage line in the transmission of data in the same current process will be unstable, prone to losing data phenomenon, the backup phone may be due to missing files and the backup failed , Therefore, the choice of MFi certification data line is still necessary.
Summary of test results
After the above three items of tests, we can clearly compare the MFi certified data cable and non-MFi certified data cable in the use of performance differences.
Charge speed, transfer speed, these functions we use everyday.Non-MFi certified data line can catch up with the MFi certified data line.But the non-MFi certified data line is the biggest problem is the current stability is poor.It is likely that the equipment Failed, especially in the case of voltage instability, the use of poor charging head when coupled with Apple's warranty policy on non-MFi certified accessories caused damage to the door.This allows the use of non-MFi certified data cable friend My heart is not the end.
In contrast, MFi certified data lines in the use of the process, all aspects of performance is very stable and Apple's use of MFi certified accessories damage is due to support the warranty, equivalent to the equipment on the insurance, which is the MFI certification is significant a little.
Apple data cable purchase advice
The above test summary also deduced an important conclusion is not mind big, choose MFi certified data line. Not to mention the different prices of the product quality, at least you can avoid damage to the equipment, the damage can not repair the big problem .
MFi certification data line is very good to recognize, will be marked on the relevant logo.But some manufacturers will mark the Apple certification data line, compatible with Apple iOS10, iOS11 and other words to confuse users, as long as there is no clear marked MFi logo data Line, we all think it has tricky.
Another reason not to be cheap is that some of the low-cost data lines may be marked MFi certification mark, after all, MFi certification is a real need to pay certification fees to Apple, the cost at the price It will not be too low, some cheaper can not be greedy.
Truth laboratory suggest that you buy more than 40 MFi certified data lines, these products are more guaranteed in terms of performance and quality Durability a lot better than the original data line.
