CateckUltra-thin Premium Aluminum 3-Port USB 3.0 Hub with SD/TF Card Reader Combo Exclusively Designed For iMac Slim Unibody (Upgraded Version)

A nice matching product once you fathom out how to fit it! Before you try have a look at the bottom of your screen on the underside, and you will see that it’s quite thick with long rectangular holes machined into it for ventilation of the components mounted internally. The rubber/vinyl parts of the unit go into these without blocking them (there’s plenty ventilation anyway) and the screws are tightened until the whole unit is firm. It looks the part and matches the quality of the screen. There’s also a tiny pin hole blue indicator light that lets you know that your iMac is powered up even though it could be sleeping so you don’t have to guess any more! Best accessory I’ve bought so far and no more fiddling about behind the screen - worth it for that alone.UPDATE.5 Months later (Feb. 2019) Port unit keeps falling off bottom of the screen. Problem is that the thread of the holding thumbscrew is too fine and attempting to tighten up the unit again causes the screw to jump threads on the holding bracket so now there is no way to fix the unit to the bottom of the screen. So while the unit may be exclusively designed it may have been better to put basic engineering in the design! It would also seem that I am beyond the return limit for the unit which considering the initial price is not good value for a little over 4 months use. I have also downgraded the Star rating to reflect this.Latest…the solution was to use a larger diameter screw in place of the original thumbscrew on the holding bracket. Any decent screw will do the job as the bracket is not particularly hard metal and the slightly larger screw, with a coarser thread, will just cut a new thread for itself. Just make sure you’re careful and slowly turn the new screw in to the existing thumb screw hole. You should findthat you can tighten this screw more than enough to hold the unit in place. Manufacturer should use a larger diameter screw with a coarser thread - PLEASE NOTE.

This device fits well on my iMac 27 and is fine for USB devices like keyboard and mouse.However it is very unreliable for any mass storage devices like USB sticks or SD cards - they spontaneously disconnect repeatedly which is immensely annoying. I imagine it is a firmware bug but obviously there is no likelihood of the firmware in this device ever being updated. It is a shame because if you can keep the device connected long enough the transfer speeds are fine.So buy it as long as you only want to use it for keyboard and mouse connections.iMac is running Big Sur 11.4 and this problem occurs with all different USB sticks and SD cards I have tried, formatted with FAT32.

The Cateck Ultra-thin Premium Aluminum 3-Port USB 3.0 Hub with SD/TF Card Reader Combo arrived in a small but quite adequate cardboard box. The instruction sheet gives good guide to installation, which is simple and straightforward. I use it with my 21 inch screen iMac and it looks great; almost part of the machine. I have it situated on the right hand side of the screen rather than centrally (I am right handed and simply prefer it that way). The device works perfectly well and has made life with usb connected devices much easier by obviating the need to fiddle around finding the usb sockets at the back of the iMac. I rate this as a good value item and would happily recommend it to anyone with an iMac looking for a usb hub that matches the machine looks.I have two small niggles (and possibly insoluble ones) in that I find I need to counter the pressure required to insert a USB plug or SD card by pushing from the back of the iMac at the same time as inserting the usb plug or card in order to stop the iMac tilting on its base hinge. This of course is nothing to do with the hub per se but hints at maybe why Apple locate their sockets a the rear of the machine. Secondly the device is attached to the iMac by two small tabs which slot into the iMac vents beneath the screen and are held in place by the pressure applied from a thumb screw. This is fine except that the device tends to wobble a bit and slip down a fraction whilst inserting a usb plug or SD card. I am being very picky with these niggles as the device is excellent.

A great shame. Very poor value. The design is perfectly OK, and I was looking forward to the convenience the product offers. But the SD card slot is not properly aligned with the casing — this is visible from the moment you unpack it — indicating disappointingly low manufacturing standards. It is with difficulty that you put the SD card in; the SD card is not exactly jammed inside but the product holds the SD card far too tightly. It seems to graze the SD card when you (perforce) have to yank it out. Thanks, but I'd rather not risk fouling up my SD cards. And the product is far from cheap; I would expect much better at this price.

Ordered to improve the connectivity of my iMac desktop pc. Itfits very neatly under the lower edge of the pc, looking like it is part of it. It comes with a fixed trailing usb lead to plug into the rear of the iMac, and does not require mains connection.This is all well and good but some units which I connected to it, e.g. cable to the dac in my Hi-Fi system, would not work and a box out appears stating that it needs to be connected to the mains. So it rather depends on what you want to use this item with and what you intend to do with it as to whether this is for you. Reading pen drives, etc is fine.Overall I am still pleased with it.

When I saw this hub on a YouTube video I just had to get my hands on one, the thing I love about this hub is the fact that it looks like it’s part of my iMac, the colour is identical and is as stylish as the iMac and the hub is solid and the fact I don’t have to reach around the back of my iMac to plug in charge leads or memory cards is a massive plus too.