Do you experience slow Wi-Fi on your laptop due to distance from your router? Are you a gamer seeking a stable, low-latency connection?
Price – $79 at Lazada
The Belkin USB-C to 2.5 Gb Ethernet adapter is your solution. This compact, lightweight adapter delivers the reliable, high-speed connection you need for gaming, streaming, and video conferencing. It’s compatible with most laptops, including Chromebooks with a USB-C 3.0 or later port. Simply connect the adapter to your laptop and plug in a Cat 6 cable to your router or switch for a significant boost in speed and stability.
The Belkin Connect USB-C to 2.5 Gb Ethernet Adapter (INC012) Comes with 2 years warranty and works with Windows® 10 and 11
macOS® 10.14 or above
Chrome OS™ 44 or above
It supports the following ports and network speeds:
Thunderbolt™ 3 and Thunderbolt 4 ports
Network speeds of up to 10, 100, 1000, and 2500 Mbps
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Benchmark test
Price – $79 at Lazada
We connected the SIMBA 2.5 Gbps fibre broadband cable direct to the Belkin Connect USB-C to 2.5 Gb Ethernet Adapter and plug it into the USB-C 3.0 port on the Gigabyte AMD X570 Extreme motherboard. The results are tested against the same cable plugged directly onto the 2.5 GbE port on the same motherboard.
The results are as follow using speedtest.net app. You might be wondering why we tested it against a Malaysian server instead of a Singapore server. The reason is because Singapore server seems to be capping the bandwidth of speedtest originating from simba users. Most of the Singapore servers will throtlte the speed to max at around 1 Gbps giving you a skewed result. It would be best SIMBA host their own speedtest.net server.
Direct to the 2.5 Gbps port on the motherboard
Direct through the Belkin Connect USB-C to 2.5 Gb Ethernet Adapter plugged into USB-C port on motherboard
Using nPerf, another application which test network speed, we did compare the difference between direct 2.5 GbE port connection versus via USB-C adapter.
We chose nPerf because it provided a less congested 10 Gbps public server for us to test against.
For both Speedtest and Nperf, we can see a consistent difference of around 200 Mbps between direct connection vs usb-c adapter.
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Conclusion
Price – $79 at Lazada
The aim of the comparison was to assess whether the adapter would affect the speed. From the results, it appears that the adapter performed admirably, especially considering the conversion overhead.
The adapter is best suited for slim notebooks that lack ethernet ports but comes with USB-C connector.
This device will require the device underlying OS to support the drivers for compatibility. Just to note that mobile phones with USB-C port may not work with the device. e.g. Xiaomi phones do not support Ethernet through USB-C port. According to some online comments, Samsung S21 to S24 series will also work with this adapter.
In summary, this compact device serves as a lifesaver in areas with weak WiFi coverage. By connecting to the Ethernet network, it offers stability and improved response times. Whether for work or leisure, this adapter proves invaluable for reliable and swift access when needed.
It is available on Lazada at S$79
It has been tested for compatibility with the following devices:
Apple® 14-in 10-Core CPU, 16-Core GPU
Apple 16-in 10-Core CPU, 32-Core GPU
Apple MacBook Air® (13-in)
Apple MacBook Pro® (16-in)
Apple MacBook Pro (15-in, 2019)
Apple MacBook Pro (13-in)
Apple iMac® (24-in)
Apple iPad Pro® (12.9-in)
Apple iPad Pro (11-in)
Apple iPad mini® 6th Gen
Dell® Precision 7560
Dell XPS 13 9310
HP® Spectre x360 13/14
Lenovo® ThinkBook/ThinkPad
Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 920
Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 730
Lenovo ThinkPad L380
Lenovo Yoga 9i
Toshiba Dynabook
Dynabook Portégé® X4-E
Chromebook
Microsoft Surface® Book 3
ASUS® ROG Rapture GT-AX11000
NETGEAR Nighthawk® AX11000
Motorola® MB8611