SilverStone EP03 USB 3.0 Charging Hub with Display Review

Bohs Hansen / 8 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing

At the time of writing this review, I couldn’t find the SilverStone EP03 listed for sale in the US yet, but it is widely available in the EU already with Amazon having it listed for just £26.60 and Geizhals has it for €35.93.

Conclusion

The SilverStone EP03 is so much more than the average USB hub, but it is that too. The hub is built with a beautiful casing that features a brushed aluminium top panel. As normal USB hub, it does a great job at connecting multiple drives or other USB devices to your system while it also acts as a power charger.

The EP03 can deliver 2A on all four ports and in return charge even then most power hungry gadgets in no time. It is built with over current and over voltage protections and adheres to the USB power delivery specification 1.2, so all your connected devices should be fully secured.

The built-in display might not be the feature that you’ll use most of the time, but it’s an awesome one to have when you need it. You can keep an eye on your device’s power consumption in real-time and even validate cables thanks to this feature. After having this hub and charger in use, I never want to part with it again.

When connecting storage through the hub function in the EP03, you won’t notice any difference in the transfer speeds compared to a native connection. There was a minor difference to be seen in the benchmark, but it was so minimal that you’ll never notice it outside of benchmark programs.

Pros

Beautiful simplistic design
USB 3.0 hub functionality
Supercharger with 2A on all four ports
Built-in monitoring display
Built-in device protection

Cons

Included USB cable might be a little too short for some usage scenarios.

“SilverStone’s EP03 isn’t just a USB 3.0 hub, it’s also a smart charging station that I never want to part with again. A simple solution to a problem I didn’t know I had.”