More than once I've written about stuff made by Big Brand manufacturers so I decided to balance things out by writing about a mostly-unknown but good things. In short, if you need something small like HDD enclosure or some cable or USB hub or a dongle of some kind, check if ORICO makes it and chances are you won't be disappointed. It's usually slightly more expensive than low-end stuff from aliexpress but, in my opinion, it's usually worth it.
Disclaimer. This post is a shameless promotion of their brand although, unfortunately, nobody paid me for it or even sent me any free stuff. Guys from ORICO and not, if you read this, I'll gladly review whatever free goodies you send me :) I only do honest reviews so better make sure to send the good stuff.
At this point I own a USB hub, three different 2.5" HDD enclosures, and a precision screwdriver set from them. And probably something else I don't remember. Here are the pics:
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| USB hub in its natural habitat, surrounded by cables. |
It's powered with external adapter and supports Battery Charge protocol. Not powerful enough for most phones, no Quick Charge or anything like, but enough for charging smaller devices. Speed is ok although I feel plugging fast external HDDs directly into laptop is somewhat better. Full USB 3.0 support, no Type-C ports but it's older than the new standard anyway. The only serious disadvantage, in my opinion is that it only has four ports, it has one unused side so it easily could've been six (and possibly one or two on top for flash drives and like, although I like to put wireless charger stand on top of it so I probably wouldn't use them). The thing is I have a TRNG, mouse RF dongle, and RJ-45 dongle permanently plugged into it, it leaves only one empty port for anything else (which is usually enough but I don't like it). I'll probably upgrade it one day to something with both Type-C and Type-A ports and RJ-45 built-in. Maybe even a full-scale docking station, with video and audio... There are all kinds of these things on the manufacturer's site but I haven't compared them properly because I don't really need anything right now anyway.
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| Two kinds of 2.5" HDD enclosures |
The transparent one is for slim 7mm drives while black one is for "full-sized" 9.5mm. Both have good speed and Type-C connectors. Unclear how much of USB 3.1 it actually supports, I have no laptops with full 3.1 support yet. But hopefully it's future-proof enough. The third enclosure (not pictured) I have is not Type-C (it uses one of the microUSB 3.0 variants) but works ok nevertheless.
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| Precision screwdriver in a nice case |
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| it's quite compact |
I like that heads are screwed in instead of magnets and the case is quite failsafe, it's really hard to break it since it's soft and even losing something is complicated. Handle allows for good grip although doesn't have anything for helping with tighter screws (no hexagonal segment, no ribs, nothing) but it's rarely required for electronics anyway. I hope steel is good, so far neither T6 nor T5 head is broken (which were problematic with most of screwdrivers I had previously, I even managed to strip some of bottom case screws in my Yoga 900 because of a bad T5 driver) but we'll see.
These are just some examples, they really have lots of stuff. Anything from data cables and power banks to surge protectors to NAS. Check out their site and aliexpress store and compare their stuff to competitors if you need something. Although it's probable that not everything is sunshine and rainbows I'm yet to be disappointed. Let me know in comments about your experience if you have any of their other devices.
