The great USB C hub compromise

Something had to give…

Continuing the saga of:

Dell “new XPS 13” dual booting Windows and Ubuntu Xenial Xerus

Eventually, the buzz has to wear off and I need to do some work with this beast without breaking my back in half.

I will be requiring a good seating position, decent monitor and grown up keyboard and mouse.

“Upgrading my life” to USB C only was ruled out given all those legacy devices were absolutely fine, as far as I was concerned.

The interim solution looked like this:

This is the sanitised version

This could not stand

I had to get a hub.

Sidebar

I’m actually a “one-screen kinda person”.

If the Gods of ACPI have been placated adequately with copious offerings of configuration changes and power connectors, then I can pack the laptop away (not on a lap) and interact with one screen and full size keyboard and pointing devices.

Here’s one way I wire it up

In addition, if this can all be done without regularly needing to cut the Gordian Knot, so much the better.

I undoubtedly spent a little too long agonising over this, but the difference in tidiness and convenience are palpable. There are many of these recommended out there, I went looking for one item on Amazon, and got another that seems to *ahem* “share the same design DNA”.

My entirely subjective assessment:

• it doesn’t get particularly warm
• no drop-outs that can I determine
• solid video output
• works under linux / Windows / Mac no problems

I’m exploiting the PD port to have a “one-stop shop” where I merely need to plug in one connector to establish my “home-brew dock”.

Connectivity

Going in order clockwise from the base:

• USB C connection to host machine
• USB C Power Delivery (PD) port
• USB 3.0 ports (2 off)
• HDMI out

I have no idea what it’s made of

At least it’s clearly labelled

It lets me do this with one plug!

And also this!

Thoughts / observations

With the XPS, the additional USB 3 port generously/sensibly provided by Dell allows a Xmas tree of USB devices to be connected to the laptop, if I want to go nuts with speakers, digitiser tablets etc.

I can’t afford Mac accessories and don’t really need them, so someone else will have to hook those up.

Conclusion

Highly recommended — around £50, which is on the lower range of the solutions out there — it clearly has less ports, but this is fine for me and it even comes with a little travel onesie.

aaah sweet

So, this solution has really cleaned things up.

Win for USB C.

I would pull the frame out and show the rest of the desk, but sadly some more innovations are needed to clean up the remaining desk area.