At times it can be a bit difficult finding the right hub for your computer, as they don’t always deliver everything they promise. Especially the ones claiming to offer multiple 4K monitor support. Sometimes an ethernet port doesn’t perform to spec, or the USB ports fail to deliver at the transfer rates you’d hoped for. Then sometimes you come across one that seems to do everything just fine, and you have come across a winner.
We kept this in mind as we began testing Inateck’s 9-in-1 USB C Hub that came out just a few months ago. It was a name we were new to, so we didn’t have anything to create any assumptions with. Going into our initial tests, we began developing such an opinion pretty quickly. Mostly because nothing went wrong (that’s always a grand start to things).
The hub is like most hubs, made mostly of plastic, with various ports running around the edges. The USB Type-C connection that runs to your computer is around 4.5-inches in length, and tucks nicely into the body of the hub itself.
It offers a wide selection of modern ports, including a VGA port in case the display you need to connect to is a bit vintage. For everything else, you have two USB 3.0 (Type A) ports for accessories or drives and two USB 3.1 (Type C) ports for both data (ie, accessories or drives) and power–no video though these ports this round. There is a 5Gbps ethernet, and two memory card slots covering both full-size SD as well as microSD. All of which seem to work perfectly fine in our experience.
The ability to supply power through the Type C ports is important since if you are using this on a laptop that charges via its Type C port, you can continue to do so by plugging in your charger to one of the ports on this hub while it is in use (while still being able to use all of the other additional ports at the same time). This is an important variable since a lot of hub solution tend to lack this, preventing you from being able to use them while your laptop also needs to be charged. Inatech seems to have you quite covered here.
As mentioned, you don’t always get the 4K performance you expect out of some of these hubs. Thankfully this isn’t the case with this one as we were able to product 4K without a hitch using the provided HDMI port. There is one little caveat though, one which isn’t advertised specifically. The HDMI port is HDMI 1.4 and not the latest 2.0 (they don’t list the specific version anywhere). This means you can only get 4K@30Hz instead of full 4K@60Hz. We didn’t dock it any points on the fact that this isn’t mentioned because they do point out that it can provide up to 4K@30Hz, and if you are knowledgeable enough to the fact that this means it isn’t 2.0, then this says it all. It is however too bad they didn’t choose to go the route of 2.0 on this one.
You can use the HDMI and the VGA at the same time, but with a limited resolution of 1080 for each. We didn’t test this out (nor the VGA port in general) since surprise surprise, we recently donated all of the displays around the office that offered VGA as an option (although that specifically wasn’t intentional, I don’t think it’s much of a loss). The projectors in our demo labs offer VGA but they are encased in sound dampening enclosures with only the more modern inputs extended through the walls to convenient outlets, so we didn’t even bother this round. Let’s just assume that one works fine.
The hub functions with both Windows (7 or newer) as well as Mac OS X systems. We found that both Windows 10 and Mac OS X works out just fine in our experience. It does not however fully work with Android smartphones that have the USB 3.1 Type C connection, as it seems the ports on these phone do not provide enough power. It can however work with such phones for the USB ports in general (you won’t be able to use the HDMI for example as it leads to a flickering display). So buy one of these for the use with an actual computer (laptop generally) to get the most out of it.
We do find a price tag of $59.99 to be a little much, but it does at least land within the average range for most hubs just like it (number of ports, types of ports, etc). To go to war on the price of this one would be to go to war on them all, which we can do. However, to take away from the score for this would be to single one out of them all, which would be poor sport on our part. So all we can do is point out the fact that these hubs are getting cheaper and cheaper to produce, thus it feels as though the $30-$40 range would be most fair these days. Until companies begin to take action on this though, we can’t hold it against one over another (just yet).
Our Conclusion
The hub is fantastic and works just as it promises. It seems to be well constructed and all of the ports seem like they will perform without troubles for the life of your use of it. You can charge a laptop while using it at the same time if the laptop uses USB Type C for this, and you can at least get 4K@30Hz out of it. This makes it a good companion for any of today’s modern laptops that lack a lot of provided inputs/outputs in exchange for making thinner solutions. The price is a little high and it would have been nice for 4K@60Hz of course, but it does fall within the average prices of similar solutions.
Discount: For a limited time (before it expires), you can receive a discount of 25% off with promo code “NETEI99H” when checking out via Amazon thanks to Inateck.
| Buy from Amazon | |
Our Rating | Average Price* $59.99 |
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
Additional Images:
Specifications:
Dimensions: 12.2x7x1.4 cm
Weight: 90g
Material: ABS (plastic)
USB Cable: C to Open (9 cm)
Ports:
– 1*HDMI interface
– 1*VGA
– 1*SD 4.0 Card Reader
– 1*Micro SD
– 1*Gigabit Ethernet
– 2*USB3.0 A
– 1*Type C power interface
– 1*Type C data interface
Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.
