Fry’s this week has a generic 10’ HDMI cable for sale at $1.99! Granted, this is a sales price and the regular price is $7.99 at Fry’s. Although at $7.99 this cable may no longer be a bargain compares to the cable by Monoprice but this is still a good price if you look at the $50; $80 even over $100 cable from shady companies like Monster.
For $1.99, this cable is reasonably well made. The two ends are wrapped with foam sheet and inside they are further protected by plastic caps. The connectors are gold plated.
When compares to Monoprice’s $4.74 (qty 1) 10’ HDMI cable (white one on the right), it is quite obvious the Monoprice’s cable is superior, but does the $1.99 works?
I have tried to use the cable with several different devices with various audio and video settings all works WITHOUT any problem!
This $1.99 came packaged inside cheap plastic bag. While it is certainly not the flashy $50-$100 cable packaging, do you want to pay up to 50x just to have a pretty box to look at? Some people brought the propaganda of the shady companies and retailers into a false thinking the more expensive the cable, the better they are. While it is true we can make better cable than this $1.99 or even Monprice’s $4.74 cable and it probably will cost a little more but at $100? HDMI cable is NOT a high tech thing that some companies has “black art” secret to make it “better”. Further, shady company like Monster is just a marketing machine. Although I never believe their marketing gimmick, a few years back when a retailer was going out of business, they sold they inventory cheap and I brought couple Monster RCA cables at Radio Shack prices. Unfortunately, both of them failed in the first and second year of use. When I opened them up, I was shocked to find out how poorly those cables were made! Those Monster cables were not even worth what Radio Shack’s prices. Don’t be fooled.