Benfei Adapters – Part Two

Benfei previously sent me a bunch of their adapters to review. You can read that blog here.  And recently I opened a box on the porch that had even more Benfei Adapters in it to review.  I love Mac computers and I love their ecosystem and sleek designs.  But that can come at a cost.   That cost is a lack of input/output connectors.

But first you can connect with Benfei on their social media sites Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, or TikTok.  Benfei sells about 6 million units per year and is the #3 seller on Amazon in their category. Benfei has been around since 2014 and has shown impressive growth in that period of time.

Adapters

I’ll break these Benfei Adapters down one at a time below.  Just know this about them.  They are economical especially when compared to Apple adapters which are expensive and typically just perform one task.

Let’s see how they work.

Memory Card Reader

Maybe the coolest part of this Card Reader is that a USB-A to USB-C adapter is attached to the cable so the user can easily choose between which port style is required.

Normally, I would take my own photo but I swiped this photo off of Benfei’s website.

It tells the story much better than my photo does.

I tested this first, mostly out of necessity.  While I am pretty well organized, and all my adapters are in one place, that place was all the way upstairs.  So I started using it right away.

I routinely use SD cards and micro SD cards.  And I have some old cameras that use that format. Also, believe it or not, some old iPods that I put CF cards in and removed the old noisy mechanical hard drives.

I do not have any Sony MS Memory cards which is the remaining slot.

The only real observation I made besides how handy it is would be that write speed to a micro SD card seemed pretty slow while writing Raspberry Pi OS on a card in this adapter.  Having said that, the actual card speed has a lot to do with that too.  I’m giving a thumbs up on this adapter.

Memory Card Reader, BENFEI 4in1 USB USB-C to SD Micro SD MS CF Card Reader Adapter

GaN High Speed Charger 20W

This is the GaN High Speed 20W Fast Charger. ($8.99)

Let’s talk about things like “high speed CHARGING cables”.  Notice I didn’t say “CHARGERS“.  Walk around Walmart and you’ll see things like like high speed cables.  What is the difference between regular cables and high speed cables?  The high speed cable has thicker wire.  That’s it!

Also, when you see something like 20Watts ‘o power that is always a MAXIMUM OUTPUT UNDER A CERTAIN CONDITION..

Here are the specs on the side of the charger.  Note the words 20W Max in bold.

USB-A Output: 5V— 3A or 9V- 2A or 12V— 1.5A
USB-C Output: 5V-3A or 9V-2.2A or 12V— 1.67A 20W Max
USB-A+JSB-C Output:SV —3A

Here is what I got when I plugged a radio in to charge.  And my disclaimer here is that I currently don’t have a USB Tester that has a USB C input and output so everything here is done via the magic of ADAPTERS  through the USB A ports.  So a 5.03 Volt output times 1.11A of current draw equals 5.5833 Watts.  Hey, it’s all math and my end thought here is that every other electrical brick or whatever is labelled or advertised in the same manner.

Not a ding on Benfei at all.  Just trying to educate my readers how these chargers and bricks are labelled and what it all means.

So it is a fast charger?  Yep and it is a GaN charger.   What is that you might ask?  A GaN charger is made from semiconductor material called gallium nitride.  Its best property is that it runs cooler in charging circuits than other materials.

Thumbs up here, too.

Benfei Adapter USB A To USB C

Here is an Every Day Carry adapter you need in the purse or travel bag.  USB A to USB C conversion is needed almost constantly in my world.   Purchase at Amazon here ($8.99)

If you look at the USB Charger Photo in the previous subheading you will see this adapter between the white cable and the USB tester.  You cannot ever have too many adapters. This should absolutely be one in the tool kit.

About the only other thing I have to say about this adapter is to beware if you are using it for charging in public places.  Adapters like this have 4 wires internally:

• Voltage
• Ground
• Data In
• Data out

I think this might be a cool recommendation.  Sell a data blocker version of this designed only for charging.

A data blocker just has the Voltage and Ground wire and no data connections. You can google “Juice Jacking” for more info.

Everyone needs one of these, thumbs up!

BENFEI Adapter USB C Video/Audio Capture Card

You can pick this up at Amazon ($25.99).  This may be the coolest one of the bunch.  Especially for gamers, or console users.  This acts as an Audio and Video capture card.

This provides a direct hardware connection between two devices to record or stream content.

If you ask me it works far better in a Mac environment and I’ll test on Linux later.  While I was able to use a Mac as the source and record on Windows, I’ve yet to be able to do it the other way around.  I’m still messing with it and not prepared to give up just yet.

Lastly it felt a little warm to the touch after a bit so I took a thermal cam image.  Measured about 44℃ or roughly 111℉.  That’s pretty acceptable but will see if I can make it go hotter by capturing a big file.

I’ll also give this a thumbs up but I am not a gamer.  Recording your gaming sessions for social media sharing or playback seems to be the killer feature here.  Or ripping video.  Don’t be a copyright violator type person though!  This would also be great for Computer to phone capture or Computer from phone capture but neither my wife nor I have the latest and greatest smart phones.  I still have my iPhone 13 and she has an iPhone 14.  Neither of us have any Android tablets either.  I’m telling you gamers that this is an economical way to capture audio and video from your consoles.

USB 3.0 Switch Share With 2 Computers (KVM)

This switch ($25.73) sure packs a couple of cool tricks under the hood. You can use this to share 4 USB ports with 2 computers.  The only catch is that you can only use that device on one computer at a time.   My video provides a little more detail.

Very useful in places like the ham shack with fixed equipment.  This could also be useful for presentations using 2 computers.

Benfei 6-IN-1 Multifunctional Hub (click pics to enlarge)

I’ve said it a lot of times. Having a Mac with a couple of USB-C ports and a headphone / mic jack is sometimes prohibitive in scope.  Apple will happily sell you expensive OEM adapters that do one thing only.   This does 6 things.

• 2 USB C ports
• 2 USB A Ports  (both are version 3.2)
• 4K HDMI Out
• USB input charging port

A killer feature here for me is the HDMI out.  We sometimes get together with my wife’s family on Sunday to watch their Churches live stream on her big television.  Easy money to leave a cable hooked up to her TV and just plug in with the Mac.   It sure makes life easier!

Benfei Adapters Final Thoughts

In a world of slim line laptops and tablets, output ports are slowly fading into the ether and adapters seem to be the way forward.  While an adapter tied to another device might slow your mobility down a hair, you can perform pro tasks On-The-Go.

OEM adapters are EXPENSIVE and usually sold to do just one thing.  Benfei Adapters are economical, small, lightweight, and some come with carrying pouches.  PERFECT for a road warrior or just a retired crafter and maker like me.

There are other companies out there that make adapters.  You’ll find a lot of them out there under a lot of names.  My experience level with most of them is minimal to non-existent.  The only adapter I really recall that wasn’t working right was an Anker USB C to 2.5 GB Ethernet.  It would appear and disapper in the Mac Network controls and would only work if my laptop were also connected to the charger.  I’m comparing apples to oranges though since I didn’t test a 2.5 GB adapter.  I did test a Benfei 1 GB Ethernet connector previously and it works and is still working fine.

Just went back through my Amazon history and found one other adapter I have used.  It is pretty similar to the 6 IN 1 adapter reviewed above.  One thing I like about it is that it also added  an SD card slot and a micro SD slot.  That would be a recommendation for the 6 IN 1 or some other future iteration of it.

Capture Card

While I love the Video / Audio capture card I know just who to donate it to.  They are a hardcore gamer and would like the ability to capture output from a Nintendo Switch.  I don’t really game at all although I would like to find someone with a Switch to see how that Video and Audio capture would make a great backdrop to a gamer with a Social Media presence.

Happy Camper

My take on Benfei is that everything they have sent me works out of the box.  Their prices are very good and my Point of Contact over there is very responsive and helpful when I ask questions.  I think these Benfei Adapters are a great supplement to your fancy light weight and slim line laptop with no ports.

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