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With the airlines reducing the carryon restrictions I needed get a smaller laptop bag and reduce what I carried. With this cable and a couple of RJ45/DB9 hoods I was able to eliminate all of my other serial cables and adapters, making a rather small and flat package that takes up next to no room and is light. Also requires no drivers on my Windows 10 tablet.

I made two adapters to go with this that now allow me to get into everything I need to get into on a regular basis, primarily cisco and hp switches. For equipment that requires a null modem cable I used an RJ45/DB9F adapter, and to turn this cable back into a standard serial port (so that I can use any proprietary cables or any device that uses a straight cable like most commercial UPS systems) I used an RJ45/DB9M adapter. Both adapters slide right into the zip lock bag that is used to ship this cable.

The pinouts (and standard RJ45 Hood Color Code) for these adapters is as follows:

For DB9M/DTE adapter

1 blue (cts) -> 8
2 orange (dsr) -> 6
3 black (rxd) -> 2
4 red (gnd) (cut it off)
5 green (gnd) -> 5
6 yellow (txd) -> 3
7 brown (dtr) -> 4
8 white (rts) -> 7

For DB9F/DCE/Null Modem Adapter

1 blue (cts) -> 7
2 orange (dsr) -> 4
3 black (rxd) -> 3
4 red (gnd) (cut it off)
5 green (gnd) -> 5
6 yellow (txd) -> 2
7 brown (dtr) -> 6
8 white (rts) -> 8

Verify the color codes on your RJ45 hoods before assembling - manufacturers have been known ignore color standards.

Every cable I've had to date consisted of a console cable with a DB9 adapter, requiring I purchase a separate DB9 to serial adapter. I've had mixed experiences with these adapters over the years, where about 3 out of 6 were bad and needed replacement. I bought this cable as a single-cable solution, and it works great. I had to download the drivers separately, since my Windows 10 laptop couldn't auto-detect the correct drivers. After driver installation I checked device manager and noticed the cable appearing as COM6, and I was able to connect just fine after the drivers were installed. I'll be purchasing a couple more of these cables for traveling, since this one is working well.

I ordered this cable to use on a little Protectli appliance I turned into a firewall (6 ports). So I wanted to upgrade the RAM, put in an mSATA SSD and run a Linux based firewall. Also I wanted to be able to upgrade or change the OS remotely if needed. This cable allows me to "console in" and watch the Protectli reboot remotely via Minicom or Picocom which are like Putty if you are on Windows. It's like out of band management for a small office that's redundantly connected to the Internet. I say "like" because I am getting there via VPN but there are 2 paths I can choose from anway. This little cable can connect to all sorts of devices and I can get to all of the via a single board coputer (SBC), all I have to do is ask someone in the office to move the cable to different labeled ports! I recommend this thing for sure. The drivers are, of course, in the Linux kernel, so unlike Windows; you don't have to pull your hair out trying to find drivers just to get a simple job done. Here is some output while I am plugging the cable in:
kernel: usb 1-1: new full-speed USB device number 22 using xhci_hcd
kernel: usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001, bcdDevice= 6.00
kernel: usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
kernel: usb 1-1: Product: FT232R USB UART
kernel: usb 1-1: Manufacturer: FTDI
kernel: usb 1-1: SerialNumber: AD0K102T
mtp-probe[8452]: checking bus 1, device 22: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-1"
mtp-probe[8452]: bus: 1, device: 22 was not an MTP device
kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
kernel: usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
kernel: usbserial: USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
kernel: ftdi_sio 1-1:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
kernel: usb 1-1: Detected FT232RL
kernel: usb 1-1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0

Used this cable to connect to Cisco routers, switches, and ASA firewalls. No drivers to install - it just worked. My customer was impressed that it was all one piece and not a bunch of cobbled together adapters and cables.
Would definitely recommend, and with Amazon's super fast delivery I didn't have to worry about it arriving in time for an onsite installation.

With newer technology, many laptops do not have serial ports. This works perfect! My work Laptop is a 7390 2-in-1. Our security policies disable USB port access, but with this item there is no need to elevate my rights as an admin. Because even as an administrator, I need to elevate my rights and disable the security protocols needed to access USB ports.

I have used this item three times with no issues. I plug it in, my OS(Windows 10) recognizes it as serial port 5, 100% compatible with putty.

Quality is not cheap, nor does it have that cliche cheap chinese quality.

Recommended buy, 100%

Here is my follow up after receiving this product and the TP-Link T2500G-10TS.
Plugged RJ45 into the switch and, using a USB-C to USB converter, other end into my macbook (macOS Catalina v10.15.5). I opened a bash terminal screen (note that zsh is default shell but OS upgrade kept my previous default). I then ran (from $ prompt)
$ screen /dev/cu.usbserial-AG0JKQ72 38400 cs8 -ixon istrip
and it worked fine. I logged into the CLI and commands ran fine.
P.S. turns out the TP-Link included a USB-C / USB cable that worked fine with the macbook. /dev/cu.* port was different (do ls /dev/cu.* before and after plugging cable in) but same screen command worked with either cable/port; I'm keeping this FTDI cable anyway.