Customer Reviews

Belkin F5U301 CableFree 4-Port USB 2.0 Hub with Dongle

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

A wireless USB hub is very appealing. The implementation of this one makes it useless.

The software only runs on Windows XP. There are no Vista drivers. The hub does not work until you've logged in and even then, it takes a few seconds. Since you have to have log in before the hub will work, your mouse and keyboard can't be plugged in to the wireless hub. This also means that USB audio devices that must be plugged in at boot will not work. I don't understand why Windows requires USB audio devices to be plugged in at boot, but that's Microsoft's fault, not Belkins.

It gets better. Yesterday, we rebooted the machine and my brother logged in with his account. The wireless hub didn't work at all because the software wasn't installed for him. Why would the installer even bother installing this software for only one user? No problem, we installed the software on his account. Reboot. Everything seemed to work. Fast user switch to my account and the software freaks out because the software running on his account is using the device. The USB devices attached to that hub go offline.

To Summarize:
- No Vista support
- Can't use it for keyboard/mouse
- No support for multiple user accounts
- Fast user switching messes it up

However tempted you may be, don't buy this product until they address these issues. This product is not ready for prime time. On the plus side, it seems like all of these problems are just related to software. If Belkin decides to, they could probably fix all of these problems in software.

This product is widely described as being Mac and PC compatible - not only here on Amazon, but in Belkin's own product information, and even in MacWorld. And yet... it's not. Once you have the item in hand, there is no pretense of Mac compatability at all, and Belkin neither ships it with a Mac driver nor provides one for download. I don't know if someone at Belkin screwed up before this product was released, but it should not be described as Mac-compatible; this is misinformation.

To be fair Belkin has always provided its costumers with grade A+products, unfortunately they failed to do so with this one. It does not have Vista support, loaded with Bugs, goes on & off whenever it feels like, and comes at a hefty price.The strange thing is that "Belkin Customer Care" acknowledges the problem and will offer you a cash back refund. The only question here is why is Amazon & Belkin still selling it when Belkin already labeled it as a defective product,and discontinued its production.

Do not buy this one, you will regret it !!!

Could not make it work on a PC or Mac. Both had the latest OS. Belkin tech support verified that it didn't work on a Mac, inspite of their having submitted it to Macworld for review. When I purchased the F5U301, Amazon listed System Requirements that included Mac OS X.

On a PC with XP Service Pack 2, we were able to register the device with Windows, but attempting to use it caused the bluescreen of death and a spontaneous restart.

I tried connecting my external hard drive as well as my scanner and printer however it seems to have problems connecting to my computer and keeps freezing. I tried another wired hub and it all works fine. This product also needs to me in line of sight so having it in a cupboard does not help either.

My HP printer only worked sometimes with the adapter, would randomly lock my system when printing requiring a re-boot. The performance was horrible and no where near the advertised 480 Mbps. At 3 feet I timed a 100 Mbps file transfer at almost 15 seconds or less than 10 Mbps. Could never get reliable link beyond 10 feet. Real dog, woof, woof. I can't believe Belkin would put a product like this out.

Everything about this product is bad. The manufacture has virtually no information on their web site to help make an informed decision to buy. Just some highly exaggerated specifications. Up to 30 foot range means about 10 feet in reality. The hub is supposed to be USB compliant but it worked with only a small percentage of my USB devices. An afterthought USB extension cable was included aparently to increase the range but this adds more wires and sloppiness where the goal was to reduce wires anD clutter. Without the extension, the device barely works. Even worse is the fact that the USB device driver is easily crashed when the wireless signal is interrupted requiring a reboot of the computer. I spent hours on the phone with Belkin support and no one knew much of anything about this device. I also received conflicting information from everyone I spoke to. One support person told me that the device had been recalled which is not true. Another told me that it had never been released for sale and wanted to know how I got one. It is really amazing how confused the company is with respect to this device. This product is an incredibly sloppy rush job and is not ready for market. The support people at Belkin were friendly and interested in helping but they had no useful information even at "level 3 support". I don't think I will ever buy another Belkin device that may require support.

IF YOU LIKE BLUE SCREEN COMPUTER CRASHES WITH MANY USB DEVICES THAT WORK PERFECTLY ON ANY OTHER HUB AND LIKE REBOOTING EVERY TIME SOMETHING INTERRUPTS THE WIRELESS PATH THEN THIS DEVICE Is FOR YOU.

Tried to get it to work with mac os x, but intermittent results. seems to drop the connection a lot. belkin tech support was of no help. Google this product for more information on mac compatibility.

Tried on my wife's windows xp box, and same poor result. Back it goes.

Even though it states "MAC" compatible. So I would consider this false advertising.

I returned it.

The 301 uses the old technolgy. The Belkin F5U302 works great. DLink has a similar one that works very well also.