Asante Friendly Net 7-Port Hub

Rating:
Summary: Great product!
Review: I've had my 7 port Asante USB hub for about a year now and love it. Unlike all of the all 4-port hubs on the market, I haven't yet run out of USB ports with this 7-port hub. I've got my digital camera, my Palm Pilot (through Palm's serial to USB converter), a joystick, and two printers hooked up to it and I've still got room to add more devices. Remember, as with any USB hub (including this one) you gain one less port than you might think since you still have to take up a port on the computer (7 - 1 = 6) (The hub has 7 ports plus one uplink port to the computer -- the uplink port into the computer is the -1 in the above equation.) With 4-port hubs, you're really only gaining 3 additional ports.

The only thing I would have preferred is a smaller external power supply. This unit is powered externally and as usual, those external power blocks are a little clunky. But I just tuck the block down below my desk and forget about it. The hub itself is sleek and slim, and fits nicely on top of my CPU (although I did have to tape it down to get it to stay put) I've had absolutely no problems with this hub on my Win98se Gateway PC. It worked right out of the box. It has green and red LED's that show you what's connected and what's not. If for some reason mine died today, I'd definitely replace it with another. This is a great hub.

Rating:
Summary: Great product!
Review: I've had my 7 port Asante USB hub for about a year now and love it. Unlike all of the all 4-port hubs on the market, I haven't yet run out of USB ports with this 7-port hub. I've got my digital camera, my Palm Pilot (through Palm's serial to USB converter), a joystick, and two printers hooked up to it and I've still got room to add more devices. Remember, as with any USB hub (including this one) you gain one less port than you might think since you still have to take up a port on the computer (7 - 1 = 6) (The hub has 7 ports plus one uplink port to the computer -- the uplink port into the computer is the -1 in the above equation.) With 4-port hubs, you're really only gaining 3 additional ports.

The only thing I would have preferred is a smaller external power supply. This unit is powered externally and as usual, those external power blocks are a little clunky. But I just tuck the block down below my desk and forget about it. The hub itself is sleek and slim, and fits nicely on top of my CPU (although I did have to tape it down to get it to stay put) I've had absolutely no problems with this hub on my Win98se Gateway PC. It worked right out of the box. It has green and red LED's that show you what's connected and what's not. If for some reason mine died today, I'd definitely replace it with another. This is a great hub.