Versatile portable hub for notebook owners
There's no shortage of portable USB hubs available for use with your notebook, but choosing the right one can be tricky. With no mains power supply these portable hubs can only offr a limited selection of ports and connectors, but Satechi's new USB-4 Multiport Adapter manages to provide a good set of ports and connectors that will be useful for many notebook users. It's also up to date with some of the latest technologies that provide good performance for the devices that you connect to your notebook.
The Multiport Adapter isn't quite pocket–size, but it’s easy to carry in a bag with your laptop when you’re traveling, and sturdy enough to cope with a few bumps along the way. We also like the 4.8–inch USB–C cable, which gives you some room to play with when you’re connecting several devices at once.
The Multiport Adapter is one of the more expensive portable hubs, but it can earn its keep with no less than six ports and connectors. There's a single USB-A (3.2) port, and two USB-C ports, with one provideing up to 100W power output for charging other devices (depending, of course, on the power output of your notebook itself). There’s an HDMI port, and this supports HDMI 2.1 with 60Hz refresh for a 4K display. It's also the first portable hub we've seen that includes a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port for high-speed wired connections.
The last option is a 3.5mm audio socket — which might seem unnecessary, as most notebooks still have their own audio sockets. However, this could come in handy for podcasting or other tasks where you might want to use external speakers and a microphone at the same time. There's no slot for memory cards, though, so photographers might prefer a rival hub that swaps the audio port for a memory card slot instead.
Features: 1x USB–A (3.2), 2x USB–C, 1x HDMI 2.1 (4K @ 60Hz), 1x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, 1x audio in/out
Needs: Notebook with USB–C
Price: $149.99
Pricey but versatile hub for MacBook and Windows notebookes.
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