Expert's Rating
Pros
- Incredibly compact
- USB-C to HDMI adapter included
- 15W/60W of charging power to phones/PCs
Cons
- Limited ports
- Best for Thunderbolt-attached displays
Our Verdict
This tiny, powered Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 hub is probably a niche product for most users, including those who wish to daisy-chain displays or USB-C dongles.
Best Prices Today: Plugable 5-in-1 Thunderbolt Hub (USB4-HUB3A)
If you’re looking for a Thunderbolt 4 hub with USB4 capabilities, look no further than Plugable’s 5-in-1 Thunderbolt Hub (USB4-HUB3A). Otherwise, this is an extremely niche product that might not be worth it to the majority of PC users.
What the Plugable 5-in-1 Thunderbolt Hub does, it does well: It’s tiny (4.9 x 2.9 x 0.5 inches) and weighs less than a pound, with a 30-inch Thunderbolt 4 cord connecting it to a PC, supplying 60W of power to a laptop. There are three additional Thunderbolt 4 ports (with 15W of power apiece) and a legacy 10Gbps USB-A port—and that’s all. The USB-A port does not supply power for charging. Inside is Intel’s older “Goshen Ridge” Thunderbolt device chipset from 2020.
Note: This review is part of our roundup of the best Thunderbolt docks. Got there for buying advice, product comparisons, and recommendations.
Don’t think of this as “portable,” however, as there’s a chunky power brick that accompanies the dock. This is a tiny little hub that otherwise slips neatly into a bag. (We consider a Thunderbolt hub as one that essentially splits the Thunderbolt connection into several additional ports. A Thunderbolt dock is usually powered, with many legacy connections. The Plugable 5-in-1 Thunderbolt Hub has elements of both.)
Plugable officially doesn’t support PCs equipped with a Thunderbolt 4 port with this device—while Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3 are very similar, Thunderbolt 4 has more stringent requirements that might cause incompatibilities in some systems.
Why buy this? Well, the Mac world tends to emphasize Thunderbolt-connected displays far more than the Windows world, so this might be a stretch for PC buyers. A handful of high-end displays for the PC market have Thunderbolt ports, as do some high-end SSDs. Don’t worry too much about the USB4 capabilities, either, as you won’t find too many USB4-specific peripherals, either. Otherwise, however, displays with either HDMI or DisplayPort are much more common, and you’ll need to invest in a USB-C dongle or a simple (included) adapter to connect to them.
Since we lack Thunderbolt-connected displays among our test bed, we couldn’t test this capability. But the box does include a USB-C to HDMI adapter, so you can certainly connect one display natively out of the box, then attach a USB-C hub to connect another. There’s a standalone 10Gbps USB-A port, as well. Sure, connecting a second device sounds like a hassle—but for Plugable’s price of $180 or so, you might end up trading saving some cash for a bit of extra clutter. These additional capabilities work well enough, though we didn’t have enough high-speed peripherals on hand to saturate all of its external Thunderbolt 4 ports.
So, to reiterate, we couldn’t test this dock to its full capabilities. But in terms of charging power and throughput, it lived up to its specifications. The hub did get a bit warm, but its metal construction dissipates heat effectively.
Plugable backs the 5-in-1 Thunderbolt Hub with a two-year warranty, and has a very good reputation for customer support. Several Plugable products are already on our list of the best Thunderbolt docks, so we’re confident that the USB4-HUB3A should deliver as well.
Best Prices Today: Plugable 5-in-1 Thunderbolt Hub (USB4-HUB3A)
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers' News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.