Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Daniel Oliver photo
1 Level
828 Review
52 Karma

Review on πŸ”Œ Satechi Slim Aluminum Type-C Multi-Port Adapter: USB-C Pass-Through, 4K HDMI, USB 3.0 - Compatible with MacBook Air, iPad Pro, MacBook Pro (Silver) by Daniel Oliver

Revainrating 5 out of 5

It's very nicely made, not heavy but looks solid

First of all, it is very nicely made, not heavy, but it looks solid. Aluminum beautifully made by Satechi. Now let's move on to my testing and reflections on 3 stars. Seems to work great with the official Apple charger as well as the Anker Premium 5-Port USB Wall Charger 60W PowerPort + 5 USB-C with Power Delivery for Apple MacBook. Big! Other docks don't seem to support the Anker charger, but this one does. My USB drives seem to work fine, I haven't tried mechanical USB drives, but I don't see a power issue. The ports deliver 1 ampere each. Also on my 2015 Macbook, the system info shows a hub with a Via chipset, with one port listed as USB2 at 1 amp and the other listed as USB3 at 1.8 amp for charging. I didn't try high gears to test the rated speeds. Now for the sad part, the hub doesn't seem to want to work with my Dell LCD. This is a 17 inch screen connected via a DVI to HDMI cable. The official Apple HDMI USB dongle recognizes the display and works great. But Satechi shows the display in power saving mode. I tried an OWC USB-C dock that was four times the price of this hub and the OWC flashed the display blue and black rendering it unusable. It's weird that Apple works, but no other docking station can work with my simple setup. When contacting Satachi support I was advised to download and install the DisplayLink driver. Unfortunately it didn't help. I also noticed a delay in restarting and booting the machine, a delay of about 20 seconds, disabling the hub seems to solve this problem. The support service decided that the hub came to me with a faulty chipset and agreed to replace it. Good service! I will update my review once I try a replacement. Update: Received the replacement hub very quickly (excellent customer service, Satechi!). Tested today and realized I may have a bad DVI to HDMI cable as it doesn't work at all with the Satchi hub. Works with my Samsung 32" TV but uses pure HDMI to HDMI. The Apple Digital AV Adapter works flawlessly with everything I've tried. I chose to keep the Satechi hub as it is convenient to have 2 USB ports, I like the way it is made unlike Apple and it supports 3rd party chargers.

Pros
  • USB-C PASTE CHARGING - Fast charge your Type-C laptop while using other USB ports. Note. The USB-C charging function only supports devices with USB Power Delivery 2.0 or higher protocol (maximum output power 60W)
Cons
  • Very expensive