When the USB ports on my last computer got a little funny after plugging in my printer, I became worried that the printer itself had damaged them. USB devices do fry ports, although it's really rare. An obvious solution is to hook any powered USB devices to a cheap hub, and let them fry the hub instead of your ports.
This hub is pretty tiny- so small that the jacks on your USB cables won't fit all the way in. They still seem secure, but this may be an issue for some users. The hub can carry power if connected to a powered USB bus, and it lights up really bright blue to indicate this. Fortunately, my computer is already an insane mass of glowing blue stuff, so it fits right in. It's always on (provided your power supply is on) so it kind of acts as a night light to find your workstation by in a dark room. That's cool.
The hub is very light, with a good solid feel. It's probably light enough that you could stick it to a wall or bookcase, and the ability to accommodate up to 4 powered devices makes it ideal for connecting your desktop stuff to a single USB port. Owners of book-profile computers take note. The actual cord that hooks the hub to your computer is pretty short, which is odd for a hub; so I figure it was mostly built with desktop peripheral attachment in mind.
Overall, this hub exceeded my expectations for what it is: ablative armor for my motherboard in the event of a power surge from my printer.
7/10
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment