Belkin In-Desk USB Hub 3-Inch (F5U402-03IN-KIT) | List Price: $39.99
Discount Price: $23.99
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Brand: Belkin
Binding: Electronics
Features: - Fits in a 3" grommet hole on your desk
- Transfers files at speeds of up to 480Mbps
- Works seamlessly with all your USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 devices
- Connects up to 4 high-, full-, or low-speed devices
- Installs with Plug-and-Play ease
Great idea, bad experience. [Posted on 2008-02-25]
I bought two of these and neither worked properly with my new Mac Pro (2008).
As with many, I have a ton of peripherals and some that I use on top of my desk. The in-desk hubs look good installed, and are a great idea. I hoped that they would replace the clunky hubs with wires draped over the edge.
I drilled the holes into my desk, installed the two hubs, and rewired all the peripherals to take advantage of the new hubs. I had one hooked-up to my PC, one to the Mac. It was after everything was together that I discovered things weren't working right. The only USB devices that worked, were those going through one of the new hubs--the other devices through the other two hubs I had hooked-up didn't work. I then troubleshooted until I found that the Belkin in-desk hub was the cause of the problems. I tried both new in-desk hubs, and both behaved the same. Essentially, if the hub was plugged in, it confused the entire USB system on the computer. It didn't matter if the power was plugged into the hub or not or if there was a device plugged into the hub or not... I also tried different cables between the hub and the computer, and it didn't change anything.
Furthermore, right on the package it says it says a USB 2.0 cable is included. Both that I received had just a USB 1.1 cable included. AND... in the instruction manual, it states that there's a green LED that shows when it is operational and that the light is off when it's not. Instead, the LED is red, which may lead one to believe it's "not operational" rather than simply being misprinted or wrongly built. (And no, it's not a dual-color LED).
So, the bottom line: plus 1 star for the good idea and the possibility that it may work on my PC. (It wasn't working when I first tried, I haven't had time to fully test). Negative 4 stars for the fact that it doesn't work on the mac as advertised, that it resulted in two 3" empty holes in my desk, a useless $20 3" hole saw, a fair amount of time lost in troubleshooting, misleading documentation, 1.1 cable instead of advertised 2.0 cable, and shattered dreams of a clean desktop.
No complaints here [Posted on 2008-08-03]
Pretty much does what you'd expect it to do. I had no problems running any usb device (hard drive, card reader, phone, bluetooth headset) with Vista.
Looks real neat in the desk. The 4-port is a little large, I'd probably get the smaller version next time.
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