-Well constructed unit -Works fine out of the box

I was looking for a solid KVM switch to use in a lab at home, decided on this one because the construction looked decent. The unit itself feels solid, works out of the box with no issues, and is half the height of an older 4 port PS2 KVM switch I had in the same place. I won't be sharing USB devices and I purchased 4 cables to go with this, no troubles so far. Overall great unit.

I have been using these units for a good 10 years and have yet to experience a failure. It's a good idea and cost effective to buy the matching cables that have a video and usb in the same cable, much neater installation.

Very old units are USB1.0 so watch out for old units. New ones are USB 2.0.

Would buy again.

Simple setup, low cost.

Would be nice if it let you setup onscreen video labels.

No frills, works as expected. To comment on a previous review, it is hardly a loss that you can't use a standard monitor cable with these. It isn't a big expense to purchase the cables that are combined USB/VGA which are cleaner than having seperate USB and VGA cables.

- two shared USB devices require an external power supply

When I connected my little Logitech portable USB speakers as a shared USB device beside the mouse and keyboard, "the USB hub" didn't have enough power to run the speakers (sigh). I would not buy this switch again, for sure. First you have to fix the male DB15 socket problem, then the shared USB problem, and each one costs more and more money.

Compact switch
USB connections for everything

Terrible design choice to use DB15 male connectors (sockets) on the switch for the 4 monitor cables to the PCs. This means I can't use normal monitor cables at all.

Why in the world would they put DB15 male connectors (sockets) on the switch when the standard cables that everyone uses for monitors and computers are DB15 male-to-male? The sockets should be DB15 female. Now I have to go out and buy 4 new cables or DB15 female-to-female adapters to make the switch usable, which will probably double the price of the switch. Hopefully this review will save someone a big surprise.