First Class Quality and Attention to Detail!
This is a very impressive little device! - The piece is very well built and obviously using high quality USB ports and other first rate materials. This USB hub also provides some nice unique touches you won't find on other brands like a numbered port display spanning 1-7 with blue LEDs sitting under each character that backlight each port's number when an active device is plugged into that position. Everything is housed in a solid, glossy white, hard plastic chassis comprising the smallest footprint of any active/charge capable 7 port USB hub I have ever seen. Much smaller than I was expecting from the product photo. The device is powered by an external AC supply (wall wart) that attaches to the hub via your typical two pole female connector. The power connector itself is located on the top end of the chassis next to the USB input/output cable that connects the hub to your computer. And Yes... as some of the whinier more anal reviewers have made abundantly clear to everyone, the AC adapter is one of the large ones and if you happen to own one of those odd power strips with the AC plugs aligned parallel to the row of female AC receptacles, then yes, this adapter is going to cover up several of the empty AC receptacles below where you plug this power supply in. My suggestion to those who consider this to be a deal busting design flaw... How about buying a better power strip? One that is designed to work with a collection of AC power supplies? They even make some strips that have swiveling receptacles to allow you to configure your power strip to suit what you are plugging into it! Amazing what technology can do eh? Problem solved and disaster averted! For whatever reason, Anker has chosen to use that specific AC power supply, so I assume there must be a very good reason for its addition to the package. So far I have been very pleased with the performance of the hub and have even done some hard drive backups through it using one of my Touro S Mini USB 3.0 hard drives just to see how the hub handled read and write to and from a 3.0 spec.hard drive. It performed just as fast as the dedicated USB 3.0 ports on my Macbook Pro do, so no complaints there. All in all, I am very pleased with this sleek little USB hub and have been very pleased to confirm that we are most definitely getting the quality and performance we are paying for here. If you are looking for a sleek, small and well built USB 3.0 hub with some nice added display features, I think you have just found what you have been looking for! And as others have said, Anker appears to be an up and coming small component manufacturing company who is specializing in first class quality devices for just a little more $$ than your typical Chinese stuff everyone else is offering these days. Read more