The best USB hubs for your laptop or tablet
August 04, 2022
The best USB hubs for your laptop or tablet
Smaller, more versatile USB hub are becoming the new standard for laptops. This is great for making thinner, lighter laptops, but how do you connect all the old USB-A peripherals like mice and keyboards? Enter the USB-C hub. By connecting the hub to the USB-C port on your laptop, you can open the connected world. Hubs can connect not only USB-A peripherals, but also HDMI connections, SD cards, or they just add more USB hubs.
Advantages:
(1)Good value for the money
(2)Excellent build quality
(3)Good mix of legacy and newer ports
Start here: Look at the peripherals you own or plan to buy. Do you have an old external hard drive that uses A conventional USB-A cable? Do you manually back up photos from SLR via SD card? Or is your Wi-Fi connection unreliable enough that you prefer Ethernet? Figure out which ports you need. This advice also applies to Windows users; Macs have their own limitations for USB-C connections.
We tested each hub with bus-powered peripherals: SSDS, hard drives, and rewritable DVD drives, all to ensure adequate power supply. We also ran speed tests on hubs with Ethernet connections to detect any abnormal results. We ran a spot check on the other peripherals.
We did standardized tests to transfer files from SSDS to laptops; From hard drives to SSDS; Then from the SD card to the PC while transferring files from the hard drive to the SSD. In almost all cases, the performance is the same, with only about a 3% difference -- which is good news for you, because it's one less thing to worry about.
We measured the surface temperature as we performed these tests. In addition, we measure the power input of each hub whenever possible.
We looked at how SD cards are inserted -- you'd be surprised how many SD cards don't work unless they're inserted upside down!
We also took note of cable length, as shorter cables limit your options when placing hubs around your laptop or tablet. At worst, short cables cause the hub to hang off the top tablet where the USB-C port is mounted.
