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Manufacturer: USB Geek Price: $29.00 Pros:
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Sprinters Fireworks 7 Port USB 2.0 Hub
March 25, 2005
Ok, this is for all of you hax0rs, modders and gamers out there that love flashing LEDs. I'm going to start by saying that I'm not into all the blinky lights. They kind of get on my nerves. Does that make me old? ;o) Oh well...
If you are not old, or do like flashing lights, then you might just like the Sprinters Fireworks 7 port USB 2.0 hub. The folks at USBGeek.com were kind enough to send us one to take a look at. This smallish hub (100 x 75 x 21 mm) comes with a USB cable to hook up to your computer, and a small AC adapter.
The hub is made of aqua colored translucent plastic which you can see the circuit board through. Each port connector is a also translucent and lit by a different colored LED. These port LEDs stay lit all the time, while an LED in the middle of the hub constantly blinks green and blue. This particular LED drives me nuts because I can see it blinking out of the corner of my eye when the hub is on my desk.
Depending on what you intend to plug into the hub, you might not even need to use the included AC adapter. I used it with various flash drives without needing it to be powered.
The hub works as advertised, but feels a bit on the cheap side as the plastic is creaky when you pick up the device. Since a person doesn't often handle a USB hub, I guess this isn't a big deal though... If you to like surround yourself and your computer with flashing lights, then this hub will probably fulfill that requirement.
Price: $29.00 available from USBGeek.com
Pros:
7 USB 2.0 ports
Multi-colored LEDs
Cons:
Multi-colored LEDs
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Manufacturer: USB Geek Price: $29.00 More reviews like this one: |
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Wow....it's both a pro and a con.....
Though I don't know about the pro part....I find the blue glow from my USB media card reader annoying enough.....
The Dreamer.
For the most part, I don't mind glowing LEDs. I just don't like flashing LEDs that flash for no reason. That said, if I had my computer in the bedroom, I wouldn't want any constantly lit LEDs.
Julie wrote:
For the most part, I don't mind glowing LEDs. I just don't like flashing LEDs that flash for no reason. That said, if I had my computer in the bedroom, I wouldn't want any constantly lit LEDs.
I'm the same way, a blinking LED is always distracting. The exception would be the slow heartbeat type blinking that my Palm does when recording with the screen off. I do have one steady LED that annoys me to no end, and that one is on my Logitech speakers in the bedroom. I have them on a shelf next to the bed, and the one speaker has a clear blue LED that is so bright it hurts to look at it. A piece of tape solved that problem!
Cool device, but IMO USB hubs have no logical reason for attracting that much visual attention, unless that's something you are going for specifically.
I tend to side with Boeing's "Quiet Dark Cockpit" philosophy when it comes to my computing environment, so this is not a product for me.
