Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased the "Anker Ultra Slim 4-Port USB 3.0 Data Hub with 10W Power Adapter / USB Wall Charger Included" version for use with a Macbook Pro 15 (late 2013 model). I generally like Anker products, but this hub apparently does not play nice with my computer. Just plugging it in causes other devices on the computer to start lagging. I spent several hours trying to debug why my bluetooth Logitech Anywhere 2 mouse had started lagging and spiking badly, swapping it with another mouse and trying the Unifying receiver instead of bluetooth, removing drivers, checking for other sources of input spikes. Just having this hub plugged in, with no other devices plugged into it, causes the input spiking to occur. I am a graphic designer and game player, and am pretty sensitive to variations in my mouse input. The problem goes away when I unplug the Anker hub. It does not reoccur when I plug in a different hub. It does not seem to matter if the Anker is powered or unpowered. The difference is subtle but appreciable to anyone who is sensitive to responsive mouse input. It may have also been the source of recent bluetooth streaming issues I have been having. Speculation time! My guess is that there is something about the USB controller in this hub that does not play nice with my laptop's USB controller, creating a conflict. I tried working with this hub plugged-in and not plugged-in to see if I was imagining it, but I don't think so. Bluetooth is internally a USB device, so if the port I'm plugging the Anker hub into is shared with the bluetooth controller, I could see how that might have been affecting my audio and bluetooth mouse input by causing data transmission problems, but this is pure speculation on my part. A workaround might be to just plug the Anker into the other USB port so it doesn't conflict with other devices sharing that datapath (this is a strategy employed by DJs with a lot of USB music gear), but I think I will just return it. UPDATE: Anker customer service contacted me and helped me troubleshoot the issue. It turns out that it's not a specific problem with this hub, but with ALL USB 3.0 ports! I looked up the issue by googling "USB3 interference"; USB 3.0 data rates can generate radio frequency noise that kill bluetooth performance. It does not happen at USB 2.0 data rates; this is a problem with the USB 3.0 hardware implementation, and apparently was a big deal back in 2014, and a big surprise to the tech community. Anker suggested that moving the hub to another port farther away from the bluetooth devices as a workaround, or to use a different port, and this did seem to alleviate the problem. However, the takeaway is that you can not use USB 3.0 devices with your laptop and expect reliable Bluetooth connectivity. It may also cause problems connecting to WiFi operating in the 2.4GHz band; I'm using 5GHz at home and have not noticed this myself. You can use USB 2.0 devices with no problem in a USB 3.0 laptop port, because this does not trigger the interference-causing data rate. The severity of interference seems to depend on the USB 3.0 implementation of the computer manufacturer. In short, if you don't need Bluetooth or 2.4GHz radio connectivity, you can probably get away with using USB 3.0. I noticed that many other sellers of USB 3.0 hubs note that there are issues with wireless interference; the description of this particular hub does not mention that at the time of my review. The hub itself is still pretty nice, and Anker offered to refund the cost because of the inconvenience to me. The customer service experience has been very good, and I am appreciative of their technical followup.