Why is it that USB and HDMI cables hardly ever reveal what standard they are? Different standards make a huge difference to things like data and charging speeds and, in the case of HDMI, factors like maximum supported resolutions and refresh rates. When you’re desperately trying to connect something to your new 4K or 8K TV you might really want to know if your cable is the latest HDMI 2.1b or, if not, which one of the dozen or so different standards that preceded it. It’s difficult if not impossible to tell. USB is as bad.
It’s now notched up somewhere between 7 and 17 different versions (depending on how you classify them) from the original 1.1 to the latest USB4 Gen 3x2. And that’s before you consider the similar-looking Thunderbolt cables that are faster still and also often incognito.
