Having recently bought the excellent TomTom GPS Navigation Traffic for my phone, to replace my physical TomTom satnav, I found that it drained more battery than I could charge my phone up with in my car. And that’s not good, as it would mean I’d always run out of battery using it on long journey.

My excellent ReTrak cable was never long enough so I’d purchased a long, flat cable from eBay – it was cheap but it did what I needed to. But I’d read that the quality of the cable can dictate how much power can be transmitted, so I purchased a long, high quality one from Amazon. I replaced the USB plug with a higher output one and, combined with the new charger, it worked – at the very least it now charged as quickly as it drained.

So, I thought this was worthy of further investigation. Using my OnePlus mains adapter I tried a number of USB cables and measured the power provided using the Ampere. The results, as those click-bait ads always say, will surprise you.

The OnePlus cable provided 1010 mA. In comparison, the Sony branded cable that came with my tablet only provided a lowly 570 mA.

But let’s turn to the cables I used in the car…

The original reTrak cable, bearing in mind how slim it is, provided a very worthy 980 mA. My new, quality cable did best of all with 1030 mA.

The cheap one from eBay? Just 230 mA.

And that’s all you need to know – the quality of the cable DOES make a difference. The cable I bought from Amazon was a Ugreen brand, available in a variety of lengths and colours and are therefore highly recommended.