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In addition to the SSD, the Anker PowerExpand has an HDMI out port and two USB 3.x Type-A ports that operate at 5 Gbps. There’s a USB-C power pass-through you can plug your laptop’s power adapter – up to a 100-watt unit – so that you can charge your computer while using this hub (the USB-C port does not work for data transfer; we tried). The HDMI 2.0 port can also be used to connect a 4K 60Hz display, so you can achieve a dual 4K monitor setup on any Pro or Max M1 or M2 MacBook. Plain M1/M2 MacBook Airs are limited to just one external display. Another affordable but highly functional USB-C hub is the Vava USB-C Hub. It comes with a total of 8 ports and has a mix of USB 3.0 and USB-C ports to connect your wired accessories. You will find a single HDMI port to extend or duplicate the display and the good news is that it supports 4K. The slightly bad news is that you will get UHD resolution only at 30Hz like the rest of the hubs above. Power Delivery available from a monitor is currently limited to 100 watts at most. That means some high-performance gaming and workstation laptops can’t rely exclusively on USB-C for power even if the laptop has a USB-C port with Power Delivery. What about Thunderbolt hub monitors?
In this article, we will focus on USB-C hubs with both Ethernet and HDMI ports. Not only you will be able to experience interference-free Internet connectivity, but you will also have the advantage of connecting your laptop to an external display. But for its price, there are some limitations. For one, there are no extra USB-C ports for high-speed transfers. Instead, you will have to make do with the three USB 3.0 ports.Also included are an SD card reader (that can support a microSD card with an adapter). This is rated at UHS-I (104MBps) so not the fastest but speedier than some other hubs tested here offer. Essentially, it's a tiny, super-fast connector that many of the best laptops today have a connector for, with the only downside being that USB A or USB B connectors can't be used with a USB Type-C port (that's where a USB Type-C hub comes in handy). You get 8 ports to add to your laptop with Baseus’s good-looking 8-in-1 USB-C Hub. It features excellent PD USB-C pass-through charging (up to 100W) so you don’t lose a valuable USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 port on the laptop if you need to charge or sync. There are three USB-A ports pushing data at 5Gbps but a little underwhelming on device charging at 7.5W each. We also like the choice of cables, with a short, pull-out cable that stows inside the case for travel, plus a longer desktop cable for when you need to stretch a little further. It gives this unit a little more flexibility than other USB-C hubs. Here we have tested and reviewed the premium USB-C hubs and adapters. There are many much cheaper versions out there, but we recommend these for quality and robustness. Which extra ports do you need
The compact and very affordable 7-port Plugable USB-C Multifunction Hub has seven ports from one integrated USB-C connection, including a 4K HDMI output for adding an external display, power pass-through (at an impressive 87W) to charge connected devices, three 5Gbps USB-A ports, and SD and microSD slots. Seems the more connections used the lower the speeds, how much will peripheral to peripheral transfers slow down peripheral to computer transfers. Even though two USB-C hubs may have wildly different brand names, you may sometimes find that they’re otherwise identical or just very similar. Instantly connect to the internet via the 1 Gbps Ethernet port for a stable and reliable connection. Perfect for areas of your home with poor Wifi connectivity.
Upstream connection (Type-A or Type-C?): USB hubs have multiple downstream ports to connect to your devices but only one upstream connector, which could be a port but is often a built-in wire that connects to your computer. Many laptops, including a lot of the best Ultrabooks, only have USB-C ports, so your hub's upstream connector would have to be Type-C. Last but not least, we have Satechi’s Multi-Port Adapter. This one is the most expensive one on the list, but you can rest assured that it offers a solid performance. Plus, this one brings a premium look to the table with its flat design and low-profile design. Again, it’s not the one for you if you plan to run a 4K display at 60Hz.
Recent laptops have begun offering a USB-C technology called HBR3 with DSC, which we’ll explain more fully in the sections following our recommendations. The bottom line is that the technology offers something similar to the DisplayLink technology below, but as an industry standard. In our experience, although the technology is somewhat supported in laptops with 11th-gen Core processors, it works best in 12th- or 13th-gen laptops. If you're using an external storage device – perhaps an NVMe drive you've put in one of the best SSD enclosures– you’d benefit a great deal from using a hub that supports 10 Gbps connections – alternatively known as USB 3.1 Gen 2 or USB 3.2 Gen 2. Unfortunately, very few USB hubs actually support these higher speeds and even fewer still support the 10 Gbps speed when it comes from a Type-A, rather than a Type-C, port. Still, for Windows laptops, MacBook, and Chromebook users who only need a couple of reliable ports, this makes it onto our list of best USB-C hubs. Hyper also sells a 5-in-1 iMac USB Hub with two USB-C (5Gbps) and three USB-A (5Gbps and one that charges at 7.5W).Other ports to look for include Gigabit Ethernet for faster wired Internet access (without the flakiness of Wi-Fi), and an SD or microSD card reader for adding inexpensive portable storage to your system. Card readers come at different speeds: UHS-I at 104Mbps, and UHS-II at 312Mbps; although some are slower at 60Mbps. Pass-through charging is especially handy if your laptop or USB-C device has just one USB-C port. The 87W power is more than you get from most hubs. We also did power testing on every powered USB hub. To see just how much electricity the ports could deliver, we connected a MakerHawk Electronic Load Tester to the hub and tried to dial up as many amps as we could. As we dial up amps on any device, the voltage drops, so a 5 volt USB port could drop down to 4 volts or less as we increase the load, but USB devices need close to 5 volts – 4.7 or 4.8 volts is usually enough – so we tested how many amps we could get at 4.8 volts and at the, likely unacceptable, rate of 4.05 volts.
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