Best USB-C hubs and dongles 2023: Add ports to your laptop or tablet

Can a USB-C hub feel elegant? This one does. Anker’s 7-in-1 USB-C hub feels surprisingly weighty (3.5 ounces), with a premium metallic (aluminum and polycarbonate) sheen. It’s also a bit more expensive than its rivals. Anker’s hub was among the coolest we’ve tested under load, at about 87 degrees.

Overall, Anker’s hub is well designed, with adequate spacing between the two 5Gbps USB-A ports. There’s also a 5Gbps USB-C connection for data, plus a second USB-C port for power input at up to 85W rated. (The charger allows up to 100W in, but supplies 85W.) An HDMI port allows for 4K/30Hz video or 1080p/60Hz video to a single external display, standard for the category. Ethernet is excluded, however, so you’ll need to use Wi-Fi instead. Cord length is about 8.5 inches, above the standard 6-inch length.

Anker’s hub was among the fastest we tested to deliver data under load, including simultaneous data transfer between USB-A ports while the SD ports were active. The hub offers an 18-month warranty, and it even ships with a carrying pouch. 

We recommend not buying the more expensive $79.99 Anker 8-in-1 Hub on Amazon unless you’re happy connecting to two 1080p (and not 4K) displays…which is perfectly fine. Otherwise, the two HDMI ports will only support two 4K displays at an eye-wearying 30Hz, not 60Hz.

Yeolibo may not be a name you recognize, but this USB-C hub is impressively detailed, with a small but extremely informative manual, clearly labeled ports, and well-rounded functionality.

This hub offers three USB 3.0 (5Gb/s) Type A ports, one USB 2.0 Type A port, a USB-C (5Gb/s) port, a USB-C PD charging port rated at 100W of input power, and an HDMI port. There are also microSD and SD slots capable of SDXC cards up to 2TB and SDR25 (25MB/s) data rates. There’s no ethernet connection. The USB-C cable measures a comfortable six inches, though the connector at the end was a little stiff and took some fiddling to insert.

We didn’t have a 100W USB-C charger on hand to test, but the hub accepted 62.5W from our 65W USB-C charger. It stayed cool throughout. The hub played back protected content via its HDMI port, as expected, but dropped more frames than we hoped for when playing back 4K content over YouTube. (Only 4K30 resolutions are supported, but that’s not unusual.)

Lasuney’s 10-in-1 hub (two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, two HDMI 1.2 ports (4K@30Hz), DisplayPort gigabit ethernet, microSD/SD, USB-C power input) offers a lot for your money, including an unusual mix of not one, but two HDMI ports, and even a DisplayPort. Thanks to ethernet support, the hub can replace many of your wired connections. Power input is rated at 100W in, with about 87W available to the laptop.

But the USB-C bus the hub runs on top of simply won’t support all of the ports being used at once, which is a bit of a gotcha. While we really like the pair of HDMI ports for dual-display configurations, the fact is, you’ll probably need to limit yourself to a pair of 1080p displays to avoid saturating the bus and slowing down the connection. Customers on Amazon have reported that they only got one to work, probably because the bus itself was saturated. The other problem we found is that the SD card slot is way too slow. It took twice as long to transfer data compared to other hubs we tested. In all fairness, our other disk-to-disk tests took about the same amount of time.

Lasuney’s hub is well made, with good port spacing. It doesn’t get uncomfortably warm, either. Just be realistic: We really like the flexibility that the Lasuney hub offers, but don’t buy it thinking you’ll be able to use everything at once. If you need that capability, look at one of the more expensive USB-C docking stations, below.

Recent laptops have begun offering a USB-C technology called HBR3 with DSC, which we’ll explain more fully in the sections following our recommendations. The bottom line is that the technology offers something similar to the DisplayLink technology below, but as an industry standard. In our experience, although the technology is somewhat supported in laptops with 11th-gen Core processors, it works best in 12th- or 13th-gen laptops.

This slim plastic dock measures a hair over 6 inches wide and about 3 inches deep. It lacks a stand, and warms rather sharply under load. But it packs a pair of HDMI ports on the rear, four 5Gbps USB-A ports on the back, as well as gigabit ethernet. The USB-C cable, measuring about 2.5 feet, snakes out from the side of the dock. (CA’s manual and documentation is lousy, by the way, so we’re not quite clear what HDMI port technology it uses.) On the front is another USB Type A port and a USB-C port, too.

The latter USB-C port can be used to charge your smartphone, as it puts out 6.7W of charging power, or enough to fast-charge a smartphone. Otherwise, this is a powered dock, and it will supply 90W of charging power to your laptop, too.

At 2.8 x 0.31 x 1.22 inches, IOgear’s Travel Pro Mini Dock is an odd duck: an inexpensive, relatively tiny USB-C dock that plugs directly into your laptop, without a connecting cord.

“There’s no way this will work,” you might think—but it does, with just enough room for your laptop’s USB-C charger to sneak in one side of the dock, next to an HDMI cord, then a USB key or cord, and a 3.5mm jack. (The Mini Dock supports up to 60W of power in from an external charger.)

That’s fine, of course, if your laptop’s USB-C port is all by its lonesome. Otherwise, the Travel Pro Mini Dock will block ports as it tries to offer expansion capabilities—and that’s a problem for laptops like the Asus ZenBook, which forego a 3.5mm headphone jack but cram their USB-C ports too close together to make IOgear’s dock feasible.

We like the idea, but there are cheaper, better docks out there with more flexibility.

This is our entry for an upgraded DisplayLink dock, which has its own pros and cons—slightly more expensive than a USB-C docking station, but more features, too.

Plugable’s UD-6950PDH doesn’t allow the bandwidth for the latest HDMI or DisplayPort interfaces, but it preserves what we like about Plugable’s docks: two pairs of optional DisplayPort and HDMI connections to choose from, as well as 100W of charging power to your laptop. One omission, however, is a dedicated charging port for powering a smartphone, or any USB-C port at all. (VisionTek’s VT7000 includes these, but for a substantial premium.)

At about $199 MSRP, however, the price is absolutely right for a DisplayLink docking station. Just don’t forget your smartphone charger.

Weirdly, what you’ll buy at Amazon (the Ugreen USB-C Triple Display Docking Station) doesn’t match the name on the box (the USB-C Multifunction Docking Station PRO). The other hitch? This is a powered dock…but you’ll need to supply the charger.

These are some odd quirks, set against what is quite a pricy product. Get past those, though, and this is really a solid device — it actually drives three displays! Just make sure to download the DisplayLink software as detailed in our review, below.

Lention’s CB-C35sH feels a little cheap out of the box, with a bit of a rattle that indicates a corner or two were cut in the construction. It worked flawlessly, however. This USB-C hub is slightly wider than most, with a power input rated at 60W next to a HDMI 1.2 output (allowing 4K resolution on an external display, at 60Hz) that allows protected content to be played back with no problems. (Power input only reached 55W in our tests.) The entire hub remained cool, even with a charger attached.

In addition to the USB-C input port and HDMI output, there are four 5Gb/s USB Type A ports, and that’s it—no microSD slots, ethernet, or audio connections. We would have liked to see the latter as an option for those who need it. But connecting a mouse and keyboard, as well as transferring data over the ports, worked well within the constraints of the USB-C connection.

Both our current overall top pick, the Anker A83460A2, and the Yeolibo 9-in-1 a are better overall options, with one exception: their HDMI output is only at 30Hz, which can fatigue the eyes over long periods. Lention delivers a more comfortable 60Hz at the same resolution. And if you have issues, Lention offers a 12-month warranty with a 24-hour support turnaround.

This Rshtech RS-516 USB-C port splitter uses an unusually long 2-foot cable to split a 5Gbps USB 3.0 input (over USB-C) and divide it among four USB 3.0 Type A ports. It’s also uncommon to see those ports controlled by LED-lit button switches, and an optional 5V/2A adapter powering the whole affair.

The port splitter takes the 5Gbps input and splits it among the ports, which are only active if the corresponding LED-lit button is depressed. This applies to both power (the hub will charge, though not fast-charge phones) and data. Port spacing isn’t an issue, and the ABS/aluminum construct handles heat well.

The Rshtech hub wouldn’t always identify and connect to a bus-powered SSD, but it found every other device we connected to it. The performance of a powered external hard drive plunged to about 20 percent when all ports were occupied, but surged to about 67 percent when the optional power cable was plugged in—which Rshtech recommends when connected to external storage.

That cable (with a proprietary plug) is a pain, and the issues finding our SSD gave us pause. But we really liked how the hub allowed us access to and control of external hard drives, which spin up and down loudly and randomly.

Honestly, not much. Pay attention to our reviews and those from other shoppers, but buy according to what the hub or dongle offers. You can absolutely find solid USB-C hubs and dongles for an inexpensive price.

USB-C docking stations, though, can feel a bit overpriced. In part, that’s because Thunderbolt docks were wildly expensive during the 2020-2021 pandemic years. USB-C docking stations are an alternative, but their prices were sucked upward, too.

A docking station and a USB-C hub serve similar purposes—extending the range of ports available for a laptop—but they aren’t entirely the same.

USB-C hubs are generally more compact and portable port expanders. They come with a few ports which are mostly USB-C or USB-A ports, but higher end hubs come with SD Card slots and HDMI or DisplayPort inputs as well. USB-C hubs are designed to be small and easy to carry around with you but require power to be drawn from a laptop itself.

Docking stations on the other hand are larger and designed to be more stationary. They are meant to help turn your laptop into a desktop replacement. In terms of available ports, they come with everything a USB-C hub has and more. This includes connections for external monitors, Thunderbolt 4 ports, and Ethernet ports, among others. They are also typically powered via a power outlet allowing for all connected devices to be powered directly from the docking station.

Both USB-C and Thunderbolt ports are universal in that the same input can be used for both, but they are not exactly the same. USB-C input ports allow for data transfer rates of up to 10Gbps and power charging. Thunderbolt ports allow for data transfer rates of up to 40Gbps, power charging, and video output up to 4K resolution.

There are a couple of caveats. DisplayLink USB-C docks use the DisplayLink compression technology to squeeze more data over the generic USB0-C connection. Provided you’re not interested in high-end gaming, this technology works exceptionally well.

You may see high-end, modern laptops (which use 12th-gen or 13th-gen Core chips) squeeze out more than 10Gbps across the USB-C port because of a more generic technology called HBR3 with Display Compression. But which laptops officially support that is rarely called out by the manufacturer. Basically you may get lucky, or not.

USB-C hubs can get warm or even hot while using them to transfer data or charge devices. This is because the electronic components and circuitry within hubs build up heat during use. Depending upon the hub’s material, heat can become trapped inside the hub leading it to become hot to the touch.

If you are concerned about your hub becoming too hot during use, you may consider purchasing a hub made from metallic parts, such as aluminum, so that heat can more easily dissipate as it builds up.