I look back into the days when I first carried a laptop around the world with me. It was big and it has plenty of ways to connect. The whole back of the laptop was full of ports and often there were two rows of connectors. Now it is less back breaking to carry a laptop, but there are far less ports for connections. I’ll share an option today with an Amazon link for which I earn a tiny commission and I didn’t receive a free one.

My current laptop has two USB ports. A mouse receiver lives in one of those two ports. So how can I connect a tablet, a flash drive, a phone charger or any of the other USB devices I own. WiFi is great, but there are times you want a hard-wired connection and there is no Ethernet port to be found on the laptop. That’s where the TECKNET 3-Port USB 3.0 Hub With RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter comes in very handy.

Plug the adapter into one of your USB 3.0 ports and it gives you three USB 3.0 ports and an Ethernet adapter as fast as a gigabyte. Best of all, the adapter is quite small and fits nicely in the laptop bag you carry. Perfect if you have the backpack I wrote about in SwissGear Backpack Perfect for Traveling with Laptop, Tablet and More. Expansion like this can be had for under $20 for Amazon. So if your laptop is short on ports, grab up the adapter!