Which USB printer cable?

[MalcolmY]

I am about to buy a cheap'n'cheerful USB All-in-one printer / copier / scanner. I have been offered a bundled "bargain price" USB cable for �10 instead of �15. I have an old USB card reader which uses a similar cable. Will this suffice? Alternatively, I have seen USB cables of known make for a couple of pounds. What is the difference between all these? Will I notice any difference if I don't use an all singing, all dancing gold plated cable - bearing in mind I'll be printing the occasional scanned document / web page / letter and a few photos?

[on.knowledge]

Don't let the plonker con you .

[MalcolmY]

the plonker is well known high street electrical retailer!

[on.knowledge]

yes i am sure it is but it will be full of plonker salesmen not electrical experts.
trust me i know.

[Hammer]

A cable is a cable. As long as the data gets from a to b then it doesn't matter if it's diamond-encrusted. Go with the cheap one.

It's a different story if you're talking about analogue stuff like music where quality does matter, but for digital data, it either gets transmitted or it doesn't.

[VHG]

Many cables at "high street" retailers are WAY overpriced.

They charge �10 or �15 for a cable, but if you hunt round you can get the same cable for �2 or �3.

My local Tescos, a large one that sells TVs and other electrical goods, has quite a few cables at low prices.

Or go to a computer fair, or even small local computer shop.

[ACtheTROLL]

a cable is a cable ....
yes and no ... it depends what the cable is carrying ...

in this case it's more a printer is a printer - and a printer won't process data much faster than about 2-4 mb/sec ...
so just about any cable will do

an external hdd cable should be as short as possible and well shielded ... horses for courses

[MalcolmY]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I'm up and running with an old cable off a redundant USB 4-port hub.