Strand USB 4 Port Hub with Mains Adaptor

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Editorial reviews

Product Description
A line which has grown in popularity as the slimline unit works so well with all manner of interconnections. The hub supports Windows XP, 2000, Milenium etc and has also had considerable success with the Vista platform.

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-12-12 rating:
Good value
Bought one. It works fine. Just bought another for my son.Better packaged than the last.It is useful to have a hub that can be used with or without power unit. Not the sturdiest piece of kit in the world, but fair value. Prompt delivery from Hibaba

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review by: date: 2008-12-11 rating:
Plug in and Use!
Lovely product, very small, easy to hide away. Simply plug in to your PC and use.

I would suggest using the power adapter to reduce strain on the computer's power supply.

Recommendable to all.

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review by: date: 2008-10-03 rating:
Really good buy!
I was quite impressed about this product, once you get over the P&P charge. It's really good! There is a red light indicating when the product is on, and four green lights which light up and indicate the ports that are in use. There is about half a cm gap between each port, which isn't much, but it's good if your memory stick is slim. Cables aren't really an issue, it's plenty of space for several usb cables.

Beware that the mains plug is a massive bulky box, which was a bit of trouble inserting into to an extension cable full of plugs, but no worries otherwise.

I read in another review that it didnt shut down with the computer, mine was fine with this problem. I'm running windows XP on a Dell and it's perfectly fine.

May i add that the cable is pretty long in length, I had no issues with it reaching from the tower on the floor to my desk - and the cable is USB A to USB B, for those who wish to buy a different cable.

A great, compact and useful piece of kit. Recommend to anyone!

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review by: date: 2008-09-28 rating:
Good hub but beware of relatively expensive p&p
I am very happy with the hub - it works well, is lightweight and it was delivered promptly. However, I want to let others know about the p&p charges. I chose express delivery and P&P was £7.18. I thought the postage might have been pricey because of the weight (due to the adaptor rather than the hub) so when it arrived I checked the packaging - the actual postage cost was £6.05. You're charged £1.13 for a small padded envelope (that can bought in bulk for around 10-15p each). It's not a huge amount of money but if you are thinking about buying this product, it is helpful to know up front that the P&P charges may be more than the cost of the product itself...


review by: Jim date: 2008-09-26 rating:
A mixed bag of a device
This is a bit of a mixed bag of a hub with some good and bad points.

Starting with the good points the device is competitively priced, working out at less than a tenner including postage and packing from Hibaba. For that outlay you get the hub itself plus the USB A-B 1.5m connecting cable and a decently made power supply. It is well packaged and comes with full instructions in both English and French. It is ideal for connecting a number of high power USB devices at the same time as it can be self powered, but it can also be used with just the USB bus power for single items or multiple low power devices. There is a red LED indicating power, either bus or from the adaptor, and green LEDs for each of the four ports showing usage. So far so good!

On the negative side the USB ports are quite close together so using multiple wide devices is not possible. It will only suit multiple devices which are the width of a standard USB connector - so if you have chunky WiFi adaptors, dongles or memory sticks you may not be able to fit them all in at once. This is, however, quite a common problem with several other hubs as well - but more annoying here because this hub is self powered lending itself to multiple device use.

I use this hub on two fairly old Dell Dimension PCs, one still running Windows 98se and the other running XP and I have similar problems with both of them when using this device. Although the hub works fine if plugged in and unplugged when the PCs are up and running, if not then I have problems. Firstly, if the hub is plugged in when the PC is running and then the PC is subsequently shut down, with the hub still connected, the PC does not auto power off. Windows closes OK but the PC power remains on.

Secondly, if the PC is started up with the hub attached it will not boot up - it gets to the pre-boot display but will not search for a boot drive until the hub is unplugged. Whether this is a fault with the hub or a compatibility problem with the Dells I do not know. However, I have used other hubs on both PCs with no problems. Obviously this is not a problem when using a laptop but may be worth bearing in mind if you want to leave the hub permanently connected to a PC.

Would have been a five star product, but a point off for these niggles.

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