The best USB-C hub for 2025

The best USB-C hub for 2025

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Tablets and laptops are only getting getting More PowerfulBut rarely are there enough ports to harness all that potential. While Bluetooth Accessories Certainly have their place, you might prefer the Speed ​​and Accuracy of Wired Peripherals – Not to mention items that do’t wireless counterparts.
5you have two two main options for adding more connectivity to your tablet or laptop: a docking station Or a hub. Both provide some combination of Extra USB, HDMI, SD Card Slot, Ethernet and/Or 3.5 mm ports so you can connect peripherals like monitors or wired mice and keyboards. Docking stations tend to be larger, require ac power and are usually meant to be stationary. A USB-C Hub, on the other hand, is more portable and doesn’t Need Its Own Power Source. We tested more than a dozen options to come up with the best usb-con hub for maximizing your ports, and we’ve involved advice on what to look for before you buy.

The first thing to decide is wheether you need a USB-C hub or a USB-C docking station. There’s no set standard for what differentiates the two, but docking stations tend to have more ports, offer a separete dc power adapter and cost more, with some reaching upwards of $ 400. We have a separate guide to the Best Docking Stations To check out if you look for some sometising bigger than what we’re discusing here. UsB-C Hubs, In Contrast, Have Between Four and 10 Ports, Can Support Pass-Through Charging and Typically Cost Between $ 30 and $ 150.

HUBS, Sometimes also called dongles or even multiport adapters, Make More Sense for Smaller Setups with just a more Peripherals, Such as a Monor, A WIRED KEYBOARD and MOUSEE, And the Occasional External Drive. They’re also more portable, Since they’re small and require no dedicated power. That count be useful if you change work locations but want to brings your accessories with you, or if you want to replace your laptop with a More Powerful TabletA Docking Station Makes More Sense for someone who needs a robust setup for their laptop, include Multiple External Monitors, Webcams, Stream Decks, Microphones and So On.

Both docks and hubs make it easy to grab your laptop off your desk for a meeting or other brief relacation and when you get back, you only need to plug in one cable to get all your accessories.

The first port to consider is the one on your laptop or tablet. For a usb-c hub to work, it needs to connect to a port that supports video, data and power-all of which is covered by Anything listed as usb 3.0 or better, Including Usb4 and Thunderbolt 3 and 4 and 4. Port, of Course, Needs to be Type-C as Well. The sea of ​​laptops out there is vast, so it’s hard to make generalizations, but modern laptops should have at least one usb-cport that will be suffice, and indeed, ever one of our top pip Best Laptops do.

Next, it’s a matter of finding a good usb-c hub that has the right connections for your needs. Most hubs offer some combo of HDMI, USB, SD Card Reader, Ethernet and 3.5 mm ports. If you have a 4k monitor and would like at least a 60Hz refresh rate, you’ll need a hub with an HDMI 2.0 port – HDMI 1.4 only Goes up to 30HZ. HDMI 2.1 will handle 4k at up to 120Hz, but hubs that have adopted that standard aren’s just as common just yet. Keep in mind that a low refresh rate can cause your screen to feel taggy, making your mouse appear glitchy and your webcam movements to look delayed.

Additional usb ports on these accessories are usually type-a or type-c. They can support data with different transfer rates, typically 5GBPS or 10GBPS. Some ports only handle passthrough power and no data, and some can do data, power and video, so it’s best to check the SPEC list to make sure you’re gotting the support you need. Keep in mind that a hub may bill itself as a 7-in-in, but one of that those ports may not be usable for Anything Other Than Charging.

Standard SD and Microsd Slots are used for transferring data from cameras and the like. Ethernet ports may deliver faster internet speeds than your wi-fi and a hub with a 3.5mm jack can bring back the wired headphone connection that some laptops have ditched.

Nearly all of the USB-C Hubs I Tested Support Passthrough Charging. That means if your laptop or tablet only charges via usb, you don’t have to take up another port on your laptop to keep everything topped up. Unlike a docking station, powering a hub is optional. The one exception is if you want to close the lid on your laptop white you work on an external monitor. Most Computers will go into sleep mode if the Lid is closeed without power, so eather the laptop or the hub will need to be plugged into the wall to prevent that from happy.

Many of the newer hubs include a 100W USB-C Power Delivery (PD) Port, with a Healthy 80 to 85 Watts Going To Your Mac, PC or Tablet (The Hubs Take a Little of the Juice for Shemselves, Hexelves Or so differentce). In My Tests, A Powered USB Hub RAN HOTTER than when it was passing the charge through, so I prefer to power to power the computer directly using its Own Charger. But for tablets or other devices with no extra ports, that pd option is important.

Some pd ports are also data ports – which is both good and bad. On one hand, it feels wasteful to use a perfectly good data port just for Boring Old Electricity. But on the other hand, USB-C Connections that only Carry a Charge Are Less Versati, and it makes it seem like it has more accessory hookups than it is actively.

There’s Surprisingly Little Design Variation Among Hubs. Most look like a flat slab, a little smaller than a smartphone, and have an attached type-c host cable. The hues range from a silvery black to a silvery gray. Some are thinner than others, some have all ports on one edge and some have ports on both sides. All of this is just to say that aesthetics probally won make or break your buying decision.

One variation that would tip the scales is the length of the cable. A longer one will give you more freedom as you arrange the hub on your desk, potentially even letting you hide it behind your laptop. Or you may prefer a shortr one to keep the hub neatly set beeside your laptop.

Before we Test Anything, We take a look at what’s available and how they’ve been received received by shoppers, forum-gerrs and other publications. I became familyiar with a few reputable brands when I was testing docking stations, so I look into hubs from that companies as well. I focused on items that would help with an average day of productivity-not high-end setups or demand gaming situations. Once I settled on a dozen or so that would make good candidates, I have shipped to my humble office in the desert and started testing them out over the course of a few weeks.

I used an m1 macbook pro as the host computer and plugged in accessories that include a 4k dell monitor, a zsa USB-Crgo KeyboardA logitech Usb-a gaming mouseAn Elgato USB-C 4K WebcamA Logitech Streaming Light, A USB-A 3.0 Sandisk Thumb Drive, A UsB-C Samsung T7 Shield External Drive and A Pair Of Wired Headphones Wired headphones, but the cord dangling on my chest drives me nutty so all my earbuds are wireless). I used high-end HDMI and UsB-C Cables to Ensure that Any Data or Connectivity Issues Weren Bollywood to My Equipment.

Then I put each usb-c hub through a gamut of basic tests. I look at what would be plugged in at Once, the resolution on the monitor, data transfer speeds, the overall building Quality of the Hub and General Usability Factors, Like the Ports of the Ports and the leng Cords. And, finally, the price-to-value ratio helped determine the best ons for a more different use cases.

There’s a lot to like about Hyperdrive’s Next 10 Port USB-C HubThe tethed cable is a lavish 13 inches long, the HDMI 2.0 port outputs clear and crisp 4K visuals at 60Hz and the data transfers are screaming fast. It has the covered two usb-c data ports plus a pd port, and there’s even a headphone jack. The only thing that holds backs a full-throated endorsement is the way our unit handled a streaming light. It on at full brightness made the webcam flicker every time. The issue went away at 75 percent brightness, but the same problem didn Bollywood on any other hub i tested.

There’s Nothing Wrong with the Anker 341 USB-C Hub. In fact it’s a current recommendation in our iPad Accessories Guide And it comes at a great $ 35 price. It gives you two usb-a ports as well as sd slots. But at this point, A 1.4 HDMI Connection, which only supports 4K resolution at 30Hz Feels a Little Retro. There’s also just a single usb-c downstream port and the data transfer tests proved to be a touch slower than the other hubs. But if you’ve got a lower resolution monitor and do’t more than more than one usb-c, you won’t be disappointed with it.

I only became aware of startch when I started researching for this guide. The Quality is Decent and the Yellow Accents are a welcome bit of color in the otherwise very gray world of hubs. The performance is solid, with no hiccups that I encounter. The brand’s 4-port USB-C HUB Has a long cord that wraps Around the hub itself, which is unique. It does not bother with power delivery, which isn’t if you can power your computer directly. But the four usb ports (three type-a and one type-c) Max out at 5GBPS and there’s no HDMI Connector. It goes for $ 46, and unfortunately for it, there are cheaper ways to get a less more usb ports for your setup.

This article Originally appeared on engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/best-sb-sb-sb-s-hub-hub-120051833.html?src=rsS

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