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Comment by smoldesu | Hacker News Reader

I really miss the Thinkpad docking stations that existed on the bottom of your laptop. Yes, they were proprietary as hell. But they were also some of the coolest, most convenient connectors that existed. I know USB-C docks are technically better for a plethora of reasons, but I still find myself missing the Nintendo-Switch-like convenience of dropping my laptop onto my desk and watching my monitor and peripherals spring to life. Every time I did I could almost hear Jeff Goldblum saying "there is no step three" in my head.

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Here, we still use 2015' Dell laptops with PR02X and PR03X old fashioned docks. And some HP zbook with Ultraslim docking station 2013 , with few displayport issues on the first firmware releases.

Next laptop generation will sadly be the end of all those proprietary yet reliable docks and the beginning of USB-C/TB3 wd15/wd19/tb16 era and its army of bugs, failures (WD15 someone ?) and painful and hazardeous firmware upgrades.

Ouch, that's gotta hurt. One of the things I loved about those old-fashioned docks were how cheap they were, especially secondhand: I ended up buying 3 docks for my T460s, one for work and two for home (one in the office, one at the media center). Cost me less than $50 for the lot of them, and now I can plop down my laptop anywhere I please and it automagically assumes the form of my setup. Hopefully they make a comeback...

Yes I can also find tons of second hand PR02/03X 5 minutes from home here, dirty cheap. But the 19v 130w PSUs are usually more expensive and difficult to find.

But the PR and ultraslim dock series are so far very reliable, even after years of use.

I dread the future massive switch to USB-C and TB3 entry dock.

I hope a chip maker will eventually release a all-in-one TB controller with USB3.x/Display outputs/GbE Ethernet/Sound embedded. Currently, everything is split into differents ICs, hence the high cost and complexity.

Ironic you mention the Switch given that, within that plastic cradle, it's still a USB-C dock.

Hey, if someone made a USB-C dock for laptops that felt as good as a Switch or a Thinkpad Dock I'd be half-invested from the jump. Unfortunately, the majority of the docks I've seen are more along the lines of a tumor-sized dongle that you strap your laptop to.

Go take a look at the Dell TB16 : it's a quite massive thing, almost the size of an old macmini 2009, equiped with a too short of a tb cable. And fun fact, the TB16 is also fan cooled with an Embedded Controller (EC) and firmware that manage the fan curb.

Literally just returned a Dell WD19TB. Supposedly it was certified to work with MacBook Pro and tested with a 16in 2020 Intel and 2021 MacBook Pro Max. Neither worked and dock would shutdown after only 5 minutes if I was lucky.

For Macs I would only use the suggested docs from Apple (CalDigit/OWC etc).

CalDigit Element hub is exceptional.

Could not ever get the up-to-date TB16 to do power delivery correctly to anything (HP Zbook/various Asus/Lenovo Yoga 7) except a Dell laptop. The led on the USB-C connector stays off. The power - if delivered - stays very low and the laptop takes from its battery.

I have a Dell WD19TB too and it works great with the MacBook Pro M1 Pro. I have 2 monitors connected (a 1440p@240Hz and a 1080p@60Hz), keyboard, mouse, a Elgato video capture card and ethernet. The 1080p monitor gave some trouble though, I had to connect it to the usb-c port on the dock that supports daisy chaining.

The dock also works out of the box with the iPad Pro M1 (with some caveats, only the 1440p monitor outputs video, didn't try to use the Elgato card) and with my Dell Latitude running Ubuntu.

https://www.brydge.com/products/macbook-vertical-dock

The Brydge ones look nice, but I prefer having my laptop's screen fully accessible while docked. Plus, I'm not really sure how I liked the idea of a vertically positioned dock... one bad swipe and I'd be out my Macbook, because I can guarantee you it's not surviving the fall off my desk.

And only two ports? What's the point of even docking it in the first place if I get less IO out of it?

well you don't get "less" IO, you get exactly the same. Also you said "like the Switch," so that means screen-inaccessible and vertically positioned.

Now it sounds like what you really want is what I use: a single cord connected to an LG Ultrafine that has it's own set of built-in ports, one of which is connected to a port replicator (legacy USB-A, ethernet, etc).

Sorry, I should have been more specific. The Lenovo Thinkpad dock is like the Switch dock but better, since it doesn't render certain features of the device unusable when docked.

The current thinkpad dock that I use (with a thinkpad) docks via usb-c , I click it in, and then 3 screens, mouse,eyboard,webcam, headset all wake up. I think its still cool.

I'm in a similar position with my Surface Book. I hate that the dock is proprietary, but that one magnetic cable that covers everything is really nice.

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