You need a file off an old USB stick, and your MacBook has only USB-C ports. The stick won’t go in. Neither will the wired keyboard or the card reader sitting in the drawer. This little metal plug from Syntech is one of the cheapest fixes. You get two in the box. One end is a USB-C plug. The other is a full-size USB-A socket, with no cable in between.
Owners mostly say very little about it, which turns out to be part of the story.
Product image from the Amazon listing.
What You Are Actually Buying
The listing text, saved on this page of Reddit mentions, describes a USB 3.0 adapter rated at 5Gb/s, with a zinc alloy body in space grey. German coverage of a Syntech two-pack agrees. China-Gadgets lists USB 3.0 at up to 5 Gbit/s and says no drivers are needed. PC-Welt adds that it supports USB OTG, so sticks, mice, keyboards and drives can connect directly.
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Look closely at the pack before you order. Praise for a different Syntech adapter tells you nothing about this one. Everything in this review is about the 5Gb/s version.
Thunderbolt in the Name Does Not Mean Thunderbolt Speed
Listing titles for this adapter use the words “Thunderbolt 3”. Read that as a statement about the port it fits. A Thunderbolt port on a Mac has the USB-C shape and accepts USB devices, which is why Apple describes its own adapter as working with a “Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) or USB-C port”.
The far end of the Syntech is still a USB-A socket, and a USB-A socket speaks USB. So you get a USB 3.0 link at best. A Thunderbolt drive or dock has no way to work through it, and nothing about the plug makes an old USB device faster.
The iPad Pro is a real conflict. The listing text says the adapter is not compatible with it, and China-Gadgets repeats that the maker excludes it, yet some versions of the title name the iPad Pro 2020 as compatible. I found no owner report that settles this. If an iPad Pro is your main reason for buying, look for an adapter that clearly supports it.
Product image from the Amazon listing.
One Good Speed Test and a Lot of “Works Fine”
The best evidence on speed comes from Larry Jordan, who wrote about Syntech adapters in January 2023. He bought his own pair, then bought six more, which says something by itself. He measured a Samsung T5 SSD over a direct USB-C connection at 427 MB/s write and 388 MB/s read, and reported the same rates through the adapter. He also reported no heat.
I would put two limits on that result. His page gives no USB version or model number, so I can’t prove his units match this exact listing, although it is a Syntech USB-C to USB-A two-pack. And 5Gb/s works out to 625 MB/s before overhead, so his drive never pushed near the top of the rating. The test shows the adapter did not slow one SSD. It says nothing about a faster drive.
For ordinary use that is enough. A mouse or a keyboard needs very little speed. An old USB 2.0 stick will still run at USB 2.0 speed, which China-Gadgets lists as 480 Mbps, so expect it to stay as slow as it always was. I found no owner who ran a benchmark on this exact listing, and I would treat any claim of a precise speed with some doubt.
What Owners Plug Into It
The Reddit comments tied to this listing are short, but there are a lot of them, and they come from very different corners of the internet. You can read them on the same collected page. One MacBook Pro owner who bought the pair calls them compact and says they work well. Another Mac user calls them “small and convenient”. Someone on Chrome OS runs a USB trackball through one. A music producer used one on a 2019 MacBook Pro to get Keyscape running. An XPS owner bought them because the adapter Dell supplies is “a little bulky”, and another owner with several of them sums them up as “cheap, small, and work fine.”
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Nobody is excited, and I take that as a good sign. People plug in one old device, it works, and they stop thinking about it. For a plug this small and this cheap, that is the right result.
Fit gets a mixed kind of praise. On a retailer page for a Syntech two-pack, one buyer says two adapters sit side by side on a MacBook Pro, and another warns that the fit is snug enough to need a bit of force. That page may cover a later version, so I treat it as a hint. Complaints about wobbly adapters elsewhere never clearly name Syntech, and I won’t hold those against it.
Product image from the Amazon listing.
Where It Goes Wrong
The worst report I found is in Apple’s support forum. In April 2020 a MacBook Air owner on macOS Catalina said two single Syntech adapters worked at first, then stopped after a few minutes. Unplugging one brought it back for a short time. It happened with a Logitech mouse and with a Seagate 1TB drive. The seller replaced the adapters and the new ones did the same thing.
An Apple community specialist suggested an SMC reset, and the owner never reported back, so the thread has no ending. I can’t confirm those were the same listing, and the cause could have been that one Mac. Still, two sets failing the same way is more than one bad plug in a box, and I would not pretend it never happens.
Reddit has a smaller warning. A photographer found that a card reader worked with a standard cable and a hub but did not work through these adapters, and could not work out why. Simple accessories look like the safe case here, and fussy ones are more of a gamble.
There is also a shape problem. One Switch owner says a similar adapter won’t sit flush against a case, so check this if your laptop lives in a thick shell.
Power Is the Part Nobody Measured
This adapter has one plug and one socket, so it uses up a port and gives nothing back for charging. Apple says about its own version that it needs no power, “but devices that you plug into it might draw power from your Mac.” Apple also says you need a multiport adapter if you want USB-A devices and charging at the same time. That logic applies just as well to the Syntech.
A Reddit commenter in r/buildapc suggests this adapter for running a USB-A hub from a USB-C port, and recommends a powered hub if the devices are power-hungry. I agree. A hub full of drives should bring its own power.
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If you hope to charge a phone through it, there is a gap. I found no owner report on how fast a phone charges through this adapter. The documentation gives no charging figure either, so I won’t guess one. Treat it as a data adapter that may also charge small things.
A Cheap Fix for One Old Device at a Time
My view is simple. Buy this if you own a few USB-A things you use now and then, such as a stick, a wired mouse or a printer cable. It is small enough to leave in a bag, and owners rarely have more to say about it than that it works.
Skip it if you need several devices at once, or need to charge the laptop while they are connected. A hub or a dock will serve you better. If your device has a removable cable, a direct USB-C cable is cleaner, and that is the advice owners on Reddit give too.
The two-pack does give you one useful trick. If a device misbehaves, try the second adapter. If both fail in the same way, you have learned something about the device or the Mac, and you can decide from there. Do that test early with the fussiest thing you own, while you can still send them back.
Say you just need to plug in the odd USB stick or an old mouse. For that job, the Syntech USB-C to USB-A Adapter two-pack is the plain, low-cost answer I would point most Mac owners to. This is an affiliate link. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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