Visit Cult of Mac via RSS

2022-07-22 22:34:01 By : Ms. Jessie Bai

By Ed Hardy • 12:00 pm, December 30, 2021

You can never be too thin, too rich or have too many USB ports. The EZQuest USB-C Gen 2 Hub Adapter adds four USB-C ports and three USB-A ones, making room for an array of peripherals for your Mac or iPad.

I put the USB-C hub through real-world testing. Here are its strengths and weaknesses.

Curiously, most USB-C hubs don’t offer additional USB-C ports. They’ll generally have one, plus an array of USB-A ports as well as options for hooking up monitors, etc. But those hubs can’t be used with multiple USB-C accessories.

Which isn‘t ideal, considering Apple uses only USB-C in its notebooks and high-end tablets. This forces you to ask a question when you buy a USB accessory: do you plan to plug it into your Mac or into your hub?

This is an extra complication you don’t have to worry about with the EZQuest USB-C Gen 2 Hub Adapter. It offers four USB-C ports. And there’s a trio of USB-A ports for other peripherals.

EZQuest’s hub is 4.8 inches by 1.6 inches and 0.5 inches thick. It weighs a mere 0.16 pound. All this makes the accessory quite portable, if not pocketable.

On one end is a non-removable cable that measures 7.75 inches and ends with a USB-C connector. That’s more than long enough to plug into your Mac, and plenty to let the hub sit flat on a table when attached to an iPad in a keyboard stand. In addition, the cable seems rugged enough to stand up to regular use.

The casing is aluminum, and uses a black and dark gray color scheme. The design has curved corners and flat edges. All in all, it matches the look of a variety of Apple products. And it’s compatible with a wide range of them — any Mac or iPad with a USB-C port.

Along one edge are the four USB-C ports. Three of these support USB 3.2 Gen 2, so offer a maximum data transfer rate of 10GBps. The fourth tops out at 5Gbps but it also supports up to 100W PD 3.0 for quickly powering your Mac or iPad.

These ports are useful for charging your iPhone and other devices, as well as external drives. But they can’t handle an external monitor. For that you need a Thunderbolt hub.

On the opposite side of the EZQuest USB-C Gen 2 Hub Adapter are three USB-A ports with USB 3.0. These offer a maximum data transfer rate of 5Gbps. These ports are well suited for a range of accessories, like keyboards, mice and flash drives.

Just keep in mind, the only port that can be used to charge your computer is the fourth USB-C one.

To make sure the EZQuest hub functions well as a USB-C hub, I used it as a USB-C hub in my home office for a couple of days. That included hooking up a mouse and couple of external drives. Everything performed as expected.

As part of this, I did real-world testing to confirm that the various ports live up to the promises.

USB-C ports are really only useful if they support fast data transfers. Moving a 1GB test file from my computer to an external drive through the hub took 3.5 seconds. Transferring the same file from the drive to the computer took under 3 seconds.

This was quick enough that I moved up to the big leagues. Transferring a 10.5GB file from my computer to an external drive via the USB-C hub required 28 seconds. The move from drive to computer took 30 seconds.

Note that these two tests were done with a Kingston DataTraveler Max, a drive that supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 and up to 10GBps. Drives without that standard won‘t be as fast.

Next I tested the speed of four USB-A ports. I used a simple USB 3.0 flash drive because the ports in the EZQuest hub aren‘t any faster.

In my testing, copying the 1GB test file from the drive to my computer through the hub required 9 seconds. Moving it from the flash drive to my computer took 80 seconds.

The aluminum casing on the EZQuest USB-C Gen 2 Hub Adapter isn’t just for aesthetics. It also helps shed excess heat. The hub definitely warms up when in use.

Plug in a single USB accessory and it’ll soon pass room temperature. Add a couple more, including a charging cable, and the USB-C hub gets quite warm. It doesn’t reach dangerously hot, but it’s might be warm enough to make some people cautious.

Put this USB-C hub on your desk and you can stop worrying about whether the accessories you need to plug in are USB-A or USB-C. EZQuest’s hub has room for both. Or take it on the road for the same reason.

It warms up just a bit more than I like, but that didn’t affect its functionality during my testing.

The USB-C Gen 2 Hub Adapter is $69.99 on the EZQuest website. Its maker has an Amazon store, but this particular product was yet listed at the time of this writing.

The Satechi 4-Port USB-C Hub ($39.99) is possibly the closest competition to EZQuest’s. The name spells out its signature feature. It’s small but doesn’t have USB-A.

As I mentioned before, if you want a hub with USB-C ports that can handle video you’ll need to go with one that has Thunderbolt. Let me suggest the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock. It offers features EZQuest’s hub can‘t dream of. But it costs $269 and isn’t portable.

EZQuest provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See our reviews policy, and check out other in-depth reviews of Apple-related items.