Just a few weeks ago, I bought some Toocki USB-C cables from AliExpress for about $5 CAD or $4 USD each. My goal was to find a cheap and lightweight charging cable to keep in my backpack. Specifically, I purchased the 2m variant, which supports up to 60W fast charging, and opted for the black colour, which features a dark and premium-feeling nylon braid.

Comparisons

I tested the Toocki cable against its competitors to see how it stacks up on common use cases. First up is my favourite USB-C cable, the Apple 60W 1m cable. Apple's cable is extremely light at only 18g, while maintaining good strength and flexibility. The cable retails for $25 CAD, which can unfortunately be cost-prohibitive.

A popular alternative is the Anker 100W 6ft (1.8m) cable, which costs only $9 CAD per cable. It's on the heavier/stiffer side coming in at 44g, but it has solid reviews and Anker is known for durable products. It is also advertised with a lifetime warranty.

The Toocki cable is almost identical in shape/size to the Apple cable, while still remaining light and flexible at 33g. The plugs are made of black plastic and scuff quite easily as seen in my photo above.

Test Results

An M1 MacBook was used for the tests. The Toocki USB-C Cable (along with Apple and Anker) passed the following tests:

 ✅   Grounded Shields
 ✅   Reversible Charging
 ✅   20V + 3A Charging
 ✅   USB 2.0 Ethernet Transfer

However, one out of the two Toocki cables failed the following test, which the other brands passed:

 ❌   USB 2.0 SATA SSD Read/Write

With the first cable, the drive would enumerate but fail to mount properly. It's unclear if my first cable was simply a fluke, but the second Toocki cable worked flawlessly for data transfers. In Toocki's defense, the SATA SSD test is an extreme use case, and any data transfer over a long unshielded charging cable is asking for trouble.

Efficiency

Lastly, I checked the voltage drop of each cable to obtain the overall resistance and losses. The total resistance of the Toocki cable is within the USB-C specification of 0.25Ω. Per unit length, the Anker cable had the lowest resistance at 1.0mΩ/cm, as expected due to its 100W rating. Next was the Toocki cable at 1.3mΩ/cm, and finally the Apple cable at 1.6mΩ/cm.

Conclusion

Overall, this cable is cheap, flexible, and great for USB-C charging needs. It is both lightweight at 33g and lengthy at 2m, and is physically marked with the power rating of '60W' (an underrated feature). However, those looking to transfer USB data over long distances may want to look elsewhere.