This week on tech yeah, I wanted to bring attention to a device that you may actually need. It's no secret that computers and specifically laptops are losing their ports more and more often these days. You may need a dongle to plug various devices into your computer to help with your workflow. That's certainly the case for me. My MSI laptop has all the ports I could need, including an SD card reader but almost all of my other laptops have only USB Type C ports in them and that's no Bueno for me because the microphone setup that I use for podcasting is strictly USB-A.
Enter the HooToo USB Hub/Dongle. This is a dongle that plugs into one of the two USB-C ports on the side of the Thinkpad X1 nano you're about to hear about and just like that, I get three USB-A ports, an HDMI port for a second monitor that's critical to my workflow, an SD card reader which is also important for my workflow, and USB-C port on the back for charging my laptop while the dongle is plugged in. All of that I get from this single device.
The cord on the dongle is about 6 inches long, so you get a little length out of it too. The body of the dongle is made of plastic, with a soft touch grippy coat on the bottom so it doesn't slide all over the place when you're using it.
The main reason I got it was because of the HDMI Out that's on there. As I mentioned, a second monitor is critical to my workflow, especially now that I'm writing for Lifewire, so having the HDMI out to go with my portable monitor is pretty huge. The SD reader is a nice bonus for sure. All told this is a nice little dongle that costs around thirty bucks and brings a lot of extra utility to a laptop with limited I/O. That's definitely something I can get behind. I've left a link in the show notes to it and if you pick one up, I'll get a little extra cut at no extra cost to you, and you'll have my thanks.