Anker 332 Review

I have always been a fan of Anker products ever since their company was erected, They make laptop and phone accessories. The Anker 332 USB-C hub appears to be no different. So far it works well with my MacBook Air. I chose this hub because of its sleek design and lack of SD card slot and ethernet ports. 

The 332 is a 5 in 1 USB-C hub featuring and HDMI port, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1, USB-C data port and one USB-C port for power delivery. This is the port that you connect your laptop’s USB-C power adapter to for pass-trough charging. The hub supports power adapters of up to 100W. However the 332 requires 15W of power for himself. If you intend to use this feature, be sure that you attach Apple’s 61W or Anker’s 60W USB-C or greater power adapter if you are using an M1 or an M2 MacBook Air. 

When attached through the hub and using the included Apple 30W power adapter, only 15W of power is available to the MacBook Air and thus the battery remains in a “Not Charging” state and processor intensive tasks cause the MacBook Air to consume battery power. The hub also works without the power adapter attached to its USB-C PD port. In this configuration the 30W power adapter is connected directly to one of the MacBook Air’s USB-C ports and this hub is connected to the other. This configuration is preferable as power and communication between the power adapter and the MacBook is more reliable. In this configuration the full 30W of power is made available to the MacBook first, and then the MacBook is then able to allocate power to the attached hub as needed. This eliminates the “Battery Not Charging” issue. 

The USB-C and USB-A data ports support transfer speeds of up to 5 Gbps. The HDMI port supports up to 1080p @ 60Hz and 4K @ 30Hz. Some would prefer to have support for 4K @ 60Hz, but I already knew this going in and it is a non-issue as I do not currently own a 4K display. For those planing on using this hub’s pass through PD port, the 332’s main chipset is by Genesys Logic, Inc. This chipset is USB-IF certified for power delivery with the following fixed PDOs: PD DRP, 5V, 9V, 15V, 20V. 

Overall this is a great inexpensive USB-C hub. It is simple, stable, provides only what is necessary and it’s chipset is USB-IF certified. The only con that I can think of as it relates to the 332 is that its enclosure is entirely made of plastic. Aside from that, it does its job very well. The hub gets warm but never hot and thus I expect it to last long. It also comes with Anker’s 18 month warranty.