![]() Our rating of MHub is on the edge of limited and general recommendations, falling into the general category because this accessory will be a good and useful product for certain users when considered in isolation from other options that said, Simplifi strikes us as a decidedly better implementation of the same concept at a lower price, with only a single USB port comparatively missing from its functionality.The newest charging station to charge two iOS devices at the same time from the company StilGut. But in practice, the location of the ports and the reader, the design of the dock, and the higher price all took away from what otherwise would have been a great new offering. From a specifications standpoint, it struck us as an excellent replacement for Simplifi, given its greater number of USB ports and smaller size-even the lack of the CompactFlash and Memory Stick readers struck us as acceptable in an increasingly SD-focused world. Overall, MHub is a truly interesting and initially compelling accessory that turns out to be a little less than thrilling when actually put into use. We’d take the more compatible Universal Dock design any day. The consequence is that an encased device generally won’t rest properly or completely on MHub’s Dock Connector, preventing synchronization you’ll need to pull the case off to make it work. Apple’s Universal Dock standard, which has been adopted by virtually every major accessory manufacturer, has the benefit of a size and shape that adjusts for either completely unprotected devices or ones with cases on Simplifi uses this Universal Dock, and most likely to achieve its MacBook Air-like thin profile, MHub doesn’t. Rather, it was Dexim’s dock, which looks great but turns out to be basically incompatible with encased iPhones and iPods. What ultimately reduced our excitement over MHub wasn’t so much the cabling, the card reader’s placement, or the lighting. Thankfully, they’re not especially important, but Griffin positioned its card reader lights on the front face so that they could be seen. There’s also a smaller but related issue with the unit’s three indicator lights, which let you know that MHub is getting power, has a card in the reader, and/or is being used to dock an iPhone or iPod they’re top-mounted and not easy to see when MHub’s flat on a desk. The reader works exactly as expected, transferring files to and from SD cards without a problem. When you want to insert or remove an SD card, you need to turn the hub around and insert the card behind the persistently connected USB-to-computer cable, which is fine in the abstract, but somewhat annoying in practice: putting the card reader on the entirely unused front surface like Simplifi would have eliminated this issue altogether. Thus, it may be a narrower dock in isolation, but once the cables are connected, it’s at least as wide as Simplifi. MHub’s design instead creates a desktop hydra of cabling, one guaranteed to run from its left, another from its back, and if you’re using more than one USB port, one from its right. Simplifi’s design positioned its card readers on the front face, making insertion and removal extremely easy, while all of its cables stuck out of its back-in retrospect, a much smarter and forward-thinking choice than we realized during our review. While Dexim deserves commendation for achieving its size reductions and including all these extras-we were legitimately impressed when first taking MHub out of the box-they turn out to have come at a price. ![]() A carrying bag is also included for all of the parts. The company includes both the white micro-USB to full-USB cable used to connect MHub to your computer, a power cable that connects to an included dual USB power adapter, and device-ready mini-USB and micro-USB cables that can be connected to Blackberry devices or other small accessories. Also worth noting are Dexim’s pack-ins, which are significant for a dock of this sort.
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