nobb
12-16-2008, 08:46 AM
BudgetGadgets was nice enough to send me free samples to review. In return, I am doing a review of the products sent. This was the USB Bluetooth dongle they had sent:
http://www.budgetgadgets.com/tiny-bluetooth-adapter-dongle-laptop-p-2145.html
I had also requested a 7 port USB hub:
http://www.budgetgadgets.com/aluminum-alloy-desktop-7port-p-2477.html
But instead, they sent this instead:
http://www.budgetgadgets.com/-p-4180.html
A 4 port USB hub with led lights to act as a desk lamp. Oh well, it was free so I can complain too much.
Starting off with the bluetooth dongle. It is indeed very tiny. Easy to get lost. But this would be great on a laptop that does not have bluetooth. Since the dongle is very inconspicuous, you wont have a big rectangle sticking out from your usb port which could be easily broken off. The packaging does advertise it to be Vista compatible. I plugged it into my Vista laptop and indeed it is automatically recognized. It appears to go through the native Vista bluetooth drivers, which work very well. The downside is that the dongle did NOT come with any driver CD. The primary reason for getting this dongle was to use in my CarPC, which is running windows XP. I am running a front end called Centrafuse which has bluetooth support. I was hoping to get this dongle to work with Centrafuse so that I could pair up my Windows Mobile Smartphone to the car and receive/make calls handsfree in the car via the CarPC. Well, due to the lack of drivers XP did not recognize the device, so it is pretty much useless to me for this application. Ill probably try to look on the internet for drivers.
As for the USB hub, it feels very cheap. Taking it apart reveals how incredibly cheap this thing is. Surprisingly, there are four button cell batteries inside which power the 3 bulb led light. So it is NOT powered off USB power as you might think. The advantage of this is that you dont suck up USB power, which is limited to 500mA per port). Now the disadvantage is obvious...you will have to replace the batteries. But looking at the wiring closer, it appears the battery power is linked in PARALLEL to the USB power. The four button cells in series would put out about 6V, whereas the USB is 5V. I am GLAD I took this thing apart before plugging it into the computer, because looking at the wiring, I definitely would not feel comfortable plugging this piece of crap into my computer. Who knows what would happen when you link the 6V to the 5V usb hub...maybe fry something on the laptop? Anyways I took out the batteries first before plugging it in for testing. I did not feel comfortable plugging this in directly to the laptop (due to the lack of build quality), so I plugged it into another hub, which is connected to the laptop. Results? Does not work at all. Nothing recognized on the computer. I suppose there might be a chance that it would work if I plugged it directly into the laptop instead. But I am definitely not going to take the risk and plug this thing into my $1000 laptop. Ive fried a motherboard once because I plugged in a crappy usb device. Luckily it was an old junk motherboard that I didnt pay for.
As for BudgetGadgets, I am sure they are a good seller with other good products that should work. However, as a summary, the usb hub I received was junk. The usb bluetooth dongle works with Vista, but some effort will be required to get it working on XP. Hope you guys have better luck with their other products.
http://www.budgetgadgets.com/tiny-bluetooth-adapter-dongle-laptop-p-2145.html
I had also requested a 7 port USB hub:
http://www.budgetgadgets.com/aluminum-alloy-desktop-7port-p-2477.html
But instead, they sent this instead:
http://www.budgetgadgets.com/-p-4180.html
A 4 port USB hub with led lights to act as a desk lamp. Oh well, it was free so I can complain too much.
Starting off with the bluetooth dongle. It is indeed very tiny. Easy to get lost. But this would be great on a laptop that does not have bluetooth. Since the dongle is very inconspicuous, you wont have a big rectangle sticking out from your usb port which could be easily broken off. The packaging does advertise it to be Vista compatible. I plugged it into my Vista laptop and indeed it is automatically recognized. It appears to go through the native Vista bluetooth drivers, which work very well. The downside is that the dongle did NOT come with any driver CD. The primary reason for getting this dongle was to use in my CarPC, which is running windows XP. I am running a front end called Centrafuse which has bluetooth support. I was hoping to get this dongle to work with Centrafuse so that I could pair up my Windows Mobile Smartphone to the car and receive/make calls handsfree in the car via the CarPC. Well, due to the lack of drivers XP did not recognize the device, so it is pretty much useless to me for this application. Ill probably try to look on the internet for drivers.
As for the USB hub, it feels very cheap. Taking it apart reveals how incredibly cheap this thing is. Surprisingly, there are four button cell batteries inside which power the 3 bulb led light. So it is NOT powered off USB power as you might think. The advantage of this is that you dont suck up USB power, which is limited to 500mA per port). Now the disadvantage is obvious...you will have to replace the batteries. But looking at the wiring closer, it appears the battery power is linked in PARALLEL to the USB power. The four button cells in series would put out about 6V, whereas the USB is 5V. I am GLAD I took this thing apart before plugging it into the computer, because looking at the wiring, I definitely would not feel comfortable plugging this piece of crap into my computer. Who knows what would happen when you link the 6V to the 5V usb hub...maybe fry something on the laptop? Anyways I took out the batteries first before plugging it in for testing. I did not feel comfortable plugging this in directly to the laptop (due to the lack of build quality), so I plugged it into another hub, which is connected to the laptop. Results? Does not work at all. Nothing recognized on the computer. I suppose there might be a chance that it would work if I plugged it directly into the laptop instead. But I am definitely not going to take the risk and plug this thing into my $1000 laptop. Ive fried a motherboard once because I plugged in a crappy usb device. Luckily it was an old junk motherboard that I didnt pay for.
As for BudgetGadgets, I am sure they are a good seller with other good products that should work. However, as a summary, the usb hub I received was junk. The usb bluetooth dongle works with Vista, but some effort will be required to get it working on XP. Hope you guys have better luck with their other products.