Belkin F5u021-APL A wonderful solution for limited USB ports
Written: Nov 27 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to setup, small and light weight
Cons: Slower transfer rate
The Bottom Line: This is an excellent USB hub for anyone that has ran out of USB ports on their computer.
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| opinionated3's Full Review: Belkin USB Hub (F5U021-APL) Networking Hub |
Have you recently bought a new device for your PC and brought it home and found out that you didn't have enough ports to connect it to your computer? What was the next thing you did after cursing your blasted computer? I found myself in the same situation the other day at work and here is how I solved the problem.
I was attempting to install a digital camera on one of our workstations and both of the USB ports on the back of the computer were taken up. So before I could attach the camera's USB cable I had to have a port to plug it into on the computer. I went back to my boss and explained my situation and he went out to CompUSA and came back with a neat little device that he said would solve my problem. What he brought back from the store was a Belkin 4-port USB hub. I was really pleased to see that it was made by a company that specializes in computer accessories.
The Belkin F5U021-APL USB 4-Port Hub is a great little device that allows you to attach 4 USB devices to one USB port on the back or front of your computer depending on whether your computer is equipped with front USB ports.
The setup of this 4-Port USB hub was really easy and only took a matter of minutes and I was ready to download pictures from the digital camera. The most difficult part was opening the bubble plastic casing of the package. Once I got it open and pulled out all the included equipment; hub, USB cable and AC power adapter, it was a snap to plug in the power adapter and attach the USB cable to back of the hub to the back of the computer.
The hub itself is a very light weight and small translucent gray color plastic box that is 5 ˝ " x 2 ˝ " with 4 USB ports on the front and an AC adapter socket along with the USB plug that connects to the computer. You will also see 5 LED indicator lights on this hub; one is to indicate that the power is on from the AC adapter and 4 indicators for each of the four USB ports. The hub has a special feature that allows you to select whether you want to use the power provided by the USB cable or the power provided by the AC adapter. There is a slide switch on the side of the hub that you use to select which option you want to use.
This is a device that is actually designed to be used in a Mac environment, but it is fully compatible with MS Windows. I didn't notice until after I got back to my office that it was actually a Mac device. It is designed to operate with Mac OS 8.6 through 9.X and 10.1 or higher. But as I explained it will also work under MS Windows 98, 2000, Me and XP OS.
Even though it works with Windows OS and Mac environment their is a downside to this USB hub and that is it has a slower data transfer rate. That means if you are looking to attach a digital camera, scanner or printer that is designated as a USB 2.0 device this hub will not allow for the maximum data transfer capacity of your devices. It is rated at 12Mbps (megabyte per second) and that is equivelent to USB 1.1. The USB 2.0 devices are able to transfer data at 480Mbps, so you can see this device will work great of Mac or older USB devices for Windows OS.
Recommended:
Yes
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