7-Port USB Hub with ON/Off Switch, Black

Here's a two-part rating. The first and most important concerns its attributes as a device (data-moving) hub. I'm quite happy with it in this capacity, due to the following benefits: Pros * Compact form factor * Cool blue lights for each active port (the blue is more saturated and slightly darker than a blue coneflower, if that helps) * One on/off switch per port (so you can temporarily disable individual devices from being enumerated or unnecessarily powered up) * All seven ports work (kind of a base requirement, but I'm pleased that they all do) * Automatic driver installation in Win7/64 (and presumably other OSes as well) * Black case (goes better with my other components) * Positive engagement of the USB-A plugs (not loose at all, but not difficult to insert) Cons * Just discovered today that it doesn't supply a huge amount of power for charging. I was attempting to recharge a small 1500mAh backup battery and running two other devices -- a wired keyboard and a wireless mouse (the dongle for it). When I started charging the battery, the mouse jerked around and then stopped working. This abated when I used the hub's convenient switch to turn off the battery. I've plugged in the hub to a 5v power supply to remedy this. * Minor: the device is lightweight and thus is capsized by the cables I have plugged into it. This is a nit not worth docking a point for, rather just an FYI in case this sort of thing matters to you. * Some people may find the LEDs a bit bright (then again, it gets flipped over by cables, so the LEDs don't aim up, anyway). Other thoughts The power issue is a little annoying, but I'll live. I won't dock the device a star for this, but it is something future buyers should be aware of. ---- And here's where the review from the standpoint of a hub ends. Read on, if you want to try using this device to share peripherals between two computers by way of swapping plugs. The integral USB-A cable, rather than a USB-B socket with a B-male or mini-male to A-male cable supplied, slightly derails my original game plan for swapping peripherals between two computers using two interchanged USB-mini male plugs (one each per computer). I clearly see this pictured on the item page, and thus I won't be dropping any points from the rating of a fine piece of equipment. This is just a heads-up for those of you who might want to use this excellent hub like I plan to. I have purchased USB A (female) to USB A (male) extensions and all is well. I just switch manually, which beats a KVM that ultimately does unpredictable things or enforces keyboard emulation.

Not only is this a well-made functional seven port usb hub but it is ideal for geeks! There are the seven hubs, each with a positive-acting toggle switch plus when each switch is turned on, there is a large blue rectangular led! I attached mine with a couple squares of velcro to the left side of my tower near the back where I have it plugged in. If you are using most or all of the hubs, the leds might be a bit too much. I find that four are perfect. If I add any more to it, I can cover the extras with a small piece of black electrical tape. Wow! I just ordered a second one to place below the first one. I have 14 devices connected to usb ports and I have only eight usb ports on my machine so I do need a couple of these hubs. If you aren't into bright leds showing, you can always 'hide' the seven port hub behind your machine or cover them with electrical tape. A real plus here are the on/off toggle switches. These are usb 2 hubs so if you are fortunate enough to have usb 3 capability, these will function ok, but you will not have the speed advantage of the usb 3 devices.

It's Worked well for years now, over 5 years now. Constructed well, plastic sturdy with a solid feel. On/off switches are firm to press but not hard. Light up well to indicate on/off status. The USB card is a little short so you have to be fairly close to the PC. It does not come with a power card and it needs to be powered otherwise it causes issues with the Computer.

Ok, so first... PROs: 1.) I love the design of the hub, it's blue LEDs are very bright, almost like a night light when you consider that a PCs 5v source is always on as long as the PC is plugged in, even when the PC is off... I also love having 7 easy to reach ports. 2.) The port has an external power connector, but does NOT come with an external power supply. Still, it seems to work fine for most USB devices (memory sticks, FitBit charging dongle, etc...) My phone says it can pull ~ 450mA from the hub which I'm sure is a limitation of my PCs port rather than the hub. 3.) It's CHEAP, which is always nice. CONs: 1.) Ok, brace yourself for this one... When the hub arrived, only 3 of the 7 ports worked for data, the other 4 charged OK, but would not pass USB data... I'm a bit of an electronics guy, so rather than return a CHEAP hub, I opened it up and started diagnosing it. Here's what you're buying. a.) The PCB is single layer, which means they used conductive tape whenever PCB traces have to cross one another. Longevity? Give me a break. How long do you think the tape will hold? .... b.) About 40% of the structural, grounding solder joints were not soldered... Lazy manufacturing? c.) The PCB etchings are NOT tin platted. It has exposed copper pads, which over time will oxidize and become resistive... This is a BAD practice in general. So, what did I do? I soldered the unsoldered joints, I soldered over the unused, exposed copper, coating them. Then, I saw that the hub is actually 2 hubs in 1... It has two 4-port hubs, one is attached to the other (hence, the 7 port hub) ... the 4 ports that were not working when I bought it were all common to one hub (or chip) .. so, I started testing parts and found that the malfunctioning chip was due to a bad 12Mhz crystal -- I happen to have one of these laying around, so I replaced it and BAM, its fixed. It works beautifully now. Now, if you're not the type to test every component and feel like gambling on yours being assembled properly to begin with, go for it... Otherwise, stay away from these. I hope this helps. JP

Let me start off by saying that I regularly buy cheap China-made (supposedly low quality) items from amazon or eBay and I must say that I have been satisfied with my purchases for the most part. That was until I ran into this little piece of crap. My purpose for buying this was to use it for my external (powered) USB hard drives. I have 5 or 6 of those to store various types of data (pictures, home videos, installers, etc.). I wanted it to act as an on/off switch for my drives so that I don't have to plug/unplug the USB cables all the time. Needless to say, this did not work for that purpose. It switched on and off fine, no problems. However, when I copy data between drives (including the laptop's internal drive) it is VERY slow and most of the time just stops and freezes in the middle of copying. Also, it is supposed to be USB 2.0 compliant but when I plug in my devices, Windows tells me that it is not and that I can improve my performance if I plugged into USB 2.0. To sum it up, if all you need it for is to plug in your mouse, keyboard, light, etc., then this might work for you. If you are going to plug any type of external hard drive or flash drive, don't bother. Pros: - on/off switch and lights work just fine - aesthetically looks pretty cool Cons: - data transfer speeds are very bad, most of the time will not even copy your file completely - has a provision for a 5V power adapter but it does not come with one - very light and flimsy

Just testing out this unit right now. It's great so far, has recognized every device I have attached. This includes: *A Logitech Wireless Mouse M325 with Designed-For-Web Scrolling - Light Silver (910-002332) : at first I was dubious this would work for some reason but it did, and it works just like if it was attached to one of the main usb ports. *A cheap (but great) generic usb keyboard I bought a couple of weeks ago. *A WD Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBAAU0010HBK-NESN : this one uses it's own power supply so I don't know how it would behave if it was one of the newest ones that don't need the external power. I don't particularly like the leds as a matter of preference but the ones on this unit aren't too shiny as have been described on other usb hubs on Amazon. I guess it's also better to have them than not to since I could just tape over them if they become too annoying. All of this has been tested under Ubuntu Linux, so it should work on Windows too. That said, if something doesn't work quite right when I log on Windows I will update this review. Great unit at an unbeatable price. Can't get better than this: 5 stars! NEXT DAY UPDATE: I forgot to include my smartphone on the device connectivity test I performed yesterday. This hub just got better! I have the hub connected to a usb with powershare enabled and that same usb port couldn't recognize my smartphone (Galaxy S Captivate) as a mass storage device when connected directly to it, even with powershare disabled on the bios. Not anymore! Connecting it to the usb hub it is recognized as a mass storage device just as it should. I initially didn't care that much for the on/off switch but they are a nice addition that I will use regularly. I have a hdmi to rca converter (that doesn't have it's own on/off switch) that sometimes needs more power than the one provided through hdmi, now I can leave it connected to the hub and just turn on the port when needed. This helps me to accomplish what I wanted to do all along: more than having more usb ports, I wanted to FREE UP all the usb ports of my laptop, so when I'm going to move it around I just have to disconnect one and I'm all set. I'm using 5 ports of the 7 provided and there doesn't seem to be any reduced performance or functionality. As it stands this hub just has to stand the test of time to keep the 5 star score.

I needed a bar-styel USB hub which was compact, it needed to be inexpensive, and allow for external power--and this was the one for me. It doesn't require an external power adapter, but for my purposes I needed one (several USB devices requiring more power to be plugged into this). It didn't include a 5v power adapter, but I had one which fit perfectly. I don't have the power port measurements offhand, but it was the super thin style, instead of the classic "M" plug. The switches enable/disable their respective USB port, so you could have a device plugged into the port but the computer can't use it unless you turn the switch 'on'. If the switch is on, the blue led lights up. The light works regardless of external power or not. Be advised, you cannot use high-power USB devices (such as external drives), or a bunch of the ports all at once, without the external power. Most USB ports do not provide more than 500ma of current, and that will be split across all 7 of these ports equally (500 / 7 = 71ma). It's fine for mice or memory sticks, but yuo will need a power adapter for anything else.

At first the hub worked great! It also looked pretty good, however it wasn't until later I realized it barely supplied any power to what was plugged into it. "That's OK" I thought, "ill live". Unfortunately that wasn't the only problem with it. For some reason it interferes with every other USB port on your computer when it is plugged in. For instance, whenever I would plug my phone directly into the computer (NOT THE HUB), the phone would charge at like 2% PER HOUR. Weird huh? That's not the only thing. Whenever I would plug my Contour camera into my computer to dump my files and whatnot, my computer would never recognize the camera until I unplugged the hub and plug it back in. Here's how it went: Plug the camera in once, nothing, unplug and try again, nothing. Unplug again but this time before plugging the camera I would unplug the USB Hub. BAM! The camera shows up as a device in my computer. After that I plug the USB Hub back in and resume what I was doing. This weird little glitch makes this USB Hub unusable in my opinion. So it looks like I need a better quality one to get no glitches. 2* for the cheap price and free shipping. DO NO RECOMMEND

El producto funciona a la perfección. Con seguridad debe tener alguna fuente de alimentación extra puesto que la he conectado con varios dispositivos que requieren de corriente mediante usb como bocinas o cargar celulares y el concentrador suministra toda la corriente sin problema. La única cuestión es que no es USB 3.0 por lo que se recomienda sólo para dispositivos que no impliquen transferencia de archivos.

So far it is giving good service.

This hub instantly increased the number of USB ports on my computer without having to download or install any software. The device is easy to use, just plug it into a free USB outlet on the computer, connect a device to one of the USB ports and turn on the respective switch, then it's ready to go. I use it as a central hub for a 1 Tb external Hard drive and four flash drives. With the individual switches I can select whichever drive(s) I wish to use while the others remain dormant. When I wish to close down a drive I simply use the "Safely remove hardware" function on the computer, then turn off the respective switch. I can leave the drive in the hub for the next time I want to access it. This device is great for plugging in digital cameras, mp 3 players etc. the open ports are right in front of me, so I don't have to look for an unused one on the computer or mess about with freeing up a port by removing some other device. The hub is small enough to take along with a lap top when I have to travel. A great product, great price - No complaints. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs more USB ports for their computer.

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Your product is very very bad . When I got it it was already damaged. Only 3 out of 7 ports were working and when I tried to return it you said no. I want a replacement correct working product.