Inateck HB4101
Gadget

Inateck HB4101, 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub

There are some aspects that do not tolerate in laptops: first, the lack of cooling efficiency, secondly, the inability to upgrade certain components, such as USB 3.0 ports.

If the heating problem  is enough, I just need to do it – and clean – my laptop about once a month, for the second problem I did not find hardware upgrade, so I had to buy a multi-port USB hub.

After a long search I chose Inateck HB4101 for very simple reasons: found on Amazon, very compact, affordable, has a LED and finally found a coupon to have it at 15% less.

Inateck HB4101

There is not much to say about a USB hub, because its operation is simple: Connect it to the USB port and you have 4 new USB 3.0 ports. But I wanted to do some tests: if I plug in a USB stick to this gadget it loses speed in reading / writing? Does it work on smartphones with OTG?

Inateck HB4101
Image Source: Google Image

Size and appearance

The Inateck HB4101 hub, as I said, is very compact: the box containing the 4 USB 3.0 ports is aluminum and measures just  4.0 x 5.9  x 0.8  cm. The length of the cable is 16 cm, hard rubber coated, and the total length – cable + hub – measures 22 cm; the weight is only 32 grams. There is no point in talking about unboxing because it comes in a simple cardboard box (quite durable), locked in the classic Amazon box.

Inateck HB4101 mounts VIA VL813, a high performance chipset that delivers the maximum 5 Gb / s speed on the 4 ports and simultaneously charging multiple devices. In short, it is a very good, elegant and easily transportable device; the small dimensions and light weight make it a perfect pocket device.

Benchmark

I downloaded the first program found on the network to test a speed on writing and reading, called  HD Tune and can be downloaded as a trial version. This tool – amongst the various functions – is able to perform various benchmarks related to the access time of analyzed memory, reading, transferring, etc. My tests relate to reading and transfer speeds.

Returning to the previous question, “If I connect a USB stick to this gadget loses speed in reading / writing?”, The answer is no. I honestly expected minor performance with a key attached to the USB hub, but I was wrong.

This applies to both benchmarks: reading and transfering I got the same results, either with a key attached to the PC or with a stick attached to the USB hub. Obviously I also did a test by copying a file from the PC to the key and vice versa and even more or less the same result. Below are the various screens

Compatibility with OTG smartphones

It does not depend on the hub, but from the smartphone. If it supports OTG, it will read a USB hub and all connected devices. so why not try connecting a mouse, a pendrive and a smartphone at the same time to the same smartphone?

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