by Amrich,

2021/05/21

How to choose a suitable USB hub at a good price?

1. You need to think about how many USB ports do you actually need? 

There are up to 12 ports in one hub on the market. However, the price will higher every time adding each port.

2. Consider the version of the USB port. 

The higher USB version acquires a higher price because of chips. It depends on what are you going to do with these ports. Do you need 10Gbps USB ports? Or 5Gbps is fast enough? 

If you plan to connect the USB ports with mouses, keyboards, phones, printers, USB flash drives, and so on, then a 5Gbps USB port (USB 3.0 port) is more than enough.

After clarifying your needs, we are going to find the right hub for you. 

A good hub should build in good quality and last long.

Many hubs are made of hard plastic cases and cables with PVC. These materials can lowest the costs of the hub, but I can't call it a good hub. The plastic case can be easily scratched, the hub will gradually be scratched to a terrible level. Also, it cannot protect the chips, nor could it dispassion the heat while the hub is running. As to the PVC cable, we all know they are easily ruptured. In a word, these make the hub feels just cheap and unreliable, but the price is not cheap at all.

Then what materials can do better? 

Build-in good quality, protecting the hub from scratched badly, provide better heat depressions, extend the cable's life, but also keep a lightweight? 

The answer is matte aluminum alloy shells and nylon braided cables. 

Aluminum is the lightest metal in the world, and aluminum alloys can remain light while becoming stronger. Matte metal case makes the hub feels very comfortable in touch, and of course, looks better and reliable. Hubs like that could be solid and last long.

Some honest and young brands produce hubs with thoughtful design and use good materials of which I mentioned before. But selling their hubs not too much expensive than plastic hubs produced by some old-big brands. Uni is proudly one of them.