Warranty: 1 Year — effortless warranty claims with UK-wide coverage. Learn more
Rate this product — your experience helps other buyers.
Used for: 3–6 months
Ethernet on a machine that has none
Costs more than a generic hub with the same ports
Wired network in a hotel room, which is the whole reason it travels
Used for: 6–12 months
VGA and HDMI on the same little dongle
Has got a presentation onto every screen I have met so far, old ones included!
Used for: 3–6 months
Everything a laptop bag needs in one small slab
Gets uncomfortably hot when the Ethernet is working hard
As a travel hub it is close to ideal. The ports are the right ports, the build is the same magnesium-feeling stuff as the laptop, and it has never needed anything installed on a machine. Heat is the one thing that would stop me giving it five. Push a large file over the wired network and within a few minutes the metal shell is hot enough that you would not want it resting on your leg, and it stays that way until the transfer finishes. It has never actually misbehaved because of it, but five months in I have got into the habit of leaving it on the desk rather than tucked against the laptop.
Used for: 3–6 months
Small enough to live in the laptop sleeve
The lead is very short if the laptop sits on a stand
Travels everywhere and weighs nothing. Ethernet, HDMI, a USB-A and passthrough charging is exactly the set a laptop bag needs and no more. The lead is deliberately stubby, which is fine on a desk but awkward once the machine is raised on a stand.
Used for: 1–3 months
No card reader, which on a machine with one USB port is a miss
Five stars for what it does, but I would have paid a few pounds more for an SD slot. Coming back from a shoot means the hub in one port and a separate reader hanging off the hub, which rather undoes the tidiness it was bought for
Used for: 3–6 months
Fits the Surface properly instead of hanging off it
Only one video output, so a two-screen desk needs something else
Made for a Surface and it shows: the connector seats flush, the shell matches, and there is none of that levering feeling you get from a generic hub in the same port. VGA is still on there for the meeting rooms that have not moved on, which has saved me twice. Four months in and it lives in the laptop sleeve permanently.
Used for: Less than a month
Charges the Surface through it at full speed
The bit I was unsure about was whether the machine would charge properly through the hub or trickle along the way it did with a third-party one. It charges at full rate, screen driven at the same time, and the power light on the connector behaves exactly as it does without the hub in the way!
Used for: More than a year
Does what it says and has never let me down!
Used for: More than a year
Lived in the same bag pocket since the day it arrived and it still looks and works like new