I was looking for a new USB-c hub and came across this article. It’s an interesting write-up of what is on the inside of some popular options
I was looking for a new USB-c hub and came across this article. It’s an interesting write-up of what is on the inside of some popular options
Also if anyone has recommendations, I’d appreciate those too!
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Note that the last hub inspected in the Article is a Anker product which also seems to be rebranded one from another third-party producer. It has some better components, but nothing fundamentally better about it.
Lenovo USB C hubs. I went with them specifically because of the issues in this article, and I trust them to at least thoroughly validate their designs. Can’t speak for MacOS but mine works well with a thinkpad. The product lineup is confusing but they publish complete specs and the products generally perform as advertised. There’s also a decent used market at fair prices, presumably because they’re widely used and subsequently sold off by businesses/employees.
Rebadging OEM stuff is the name of the game for pretty much all low and mid tier companies. D-Link and their ilk. They presumably employ a small team to tweak the designs and ensure they’re compliant and safe(or maybe they outsource that too). But designing stuff from scratch is the preserve of the mega corps.
Docks in particular surprised me because I expected them to be fairly simply devices routing signals. They’re not and the portable ones are pushing the limits in terms of throughput and current draw possible in a small package. Hence, even if you’re not going to buy from a large company, you should use them as a guide to determine what’s practically possible. If Lenovo or Dell or whatever aren’t shipping a comparable device to the one your eyeballing from some random company then the chances are it’s because it’s simply not practical or possible.
Not a standalone hub or dock, but Dell makes some pretty solid docking monitors. I’m using the U2721DE model daisy chained to another monitor.