Anker’s $15 split USB-C cable fast-charges two devices at once | usagoldmines.com

Anker’s 2-in-1 USB-C cable is now $14.99 at Amazon, down from its original $25.99 and its current street price of $17.99, matching its historical lowest price. The savings might seem small here, but this is a real deal—an affordable splitter that can replace 2 cables, whether for charging or for data transfer between devices.

You’ll see that the far end of the cable has two heads. That means you can plug the main end into a charger or power bank, then both of the far ends into two different phones, tablets, etc. and get them both charging at the same time. Not only can you charge two devices off a single port, you can declutter by consolidating down to a single cable. That’s just as useful for frequent travel as it is a desk that’s running out of space.

And it’s fast, too. When charging a single device, it supports up to 140 watts, which is more than fast enough for all but the highest-power gaming laptops. A 16-inch MacBook Pro can recharge about half its battery life in about 20 minutes at that speed. When both ends are in use, total charging power caps out at 100 watts across both—still very fast for phones and such, but not laptop fast.

The caveat here is that while this cable can do data transfers, it’s limited to 480 Mbps speeds so it’s not great for huge 4K videos and moving dozens of gigabytes every day. More importantly, when it’s charging two devices at a time, only one can transfer data. I repeat, you cannot move data to two devices at once with this cable.

Despite the drawbacks, this is a practical cable that’s worth keeping on hand, especially now that it’s only $14.99. It’s an easy pickup for travelers and desk-bound multitaskers with multiple devices.