The great USB C hub compromise
Something had to give…
Continuing the saga of:
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 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.
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
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.
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.