So good I bought a second.
It doesn’t have built-in HDMI/DisplayPort out, but it’s easy to buy the appropriate cable to connect to your monitor (I recommend Club3D [2]). Especially if you’re trying to use an HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4 display, as I’ve found most built-in ports on these hubs don’t support these latest standards or have weird issues with them.
It also has a nice mounting bracket [3] that lets you hide the cable mess under your desk or behind your monitor.
[1] https://www.kensington.com/p/products/device-docking-connect...
[2] https://www.club-3d.com/en/cat/cable/usb_type_c/1606/301/
[3] https://www.kensington.com/p/products/device-docking-connect...
The best solution to this I've seen is on Angelbird’s SD Dual Card Reader which uses a sadly proprietary shaped molded USB-C connector that goes DEEP into the reader, but it is very snug and wiggle-proof. I haven't tried, but I'm confident that I could swing this thing around by the cable and not hurt it or have it disconnect at all. It really does feel like the piece of pro-level kit that would be at home on a DIT cart like it was designed for.
The Lenovo TB3 Workstation dock worked relatively well for docking an X1 Extreme, and that too has a proprietary connector which combines Lenovo's charging plug with a TB3 connector. It's secure and doesn't wiggle much, but it's short and flexible but not terribly so (large bend radius).
Lastly, I'd just like to complain about how lame it is that there are so few docks with >1 HDMI or [preferably] DP connectors. On the OWC dock, I was literally using 1x MiniDP to DP adapter cable for one monitor, then a USB-C DP alt-mode dongle plugged into HDMI to the other monitor. Plugging a dongle into a dock is serious product-level cringe. Surely I'm not the only person in the world who wants to close their workstation-class laptop and use it with dual 4K60 32" monitors, yet there seem to be so few products that work like that. I don't want to dasiy-chain one over TB either. I understand the bandwidth limitations and hope that TB4 makes this an easier sell.
My Ideal TB4 dock: - LOCKING connector, somehow. Build a cage around it like they do for some IECs or mold in a deep strain relief or something. - 3X DisplayPort 2.0 (since they lock, unlike almost all HDMI that isn't on rackmount pro gear that news stations have)...DP 2.0 has been out since 26 June 2019. - 25G SFP slot that can take a 10GbE GBIC, DAC, or fiber. I'd settle for 10G SFP. - 2x downstream TB4 ports that can fall back to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (ugh, really not a fan of USB IF naming conventions) - 4x USB 2.0 type A on a hub to plug in all the stuff that doesn't need much bandwidth, like keyboards / mice / phone charger / bluetooth dongle / YubiKey. - 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type A ports for fastish devices like external HDDs that came out before Type C. - Pass through the entire 100W and make that actually work with MacBooks. I've plugged into so many docks that can't actually charge the larger MBPs. They'll give 45w or something, which doesn't cut it for MBPs, let alone mobile workstation class laptops. 100W would at least keep a laptop with a 45W TDP CPU and at least as powerful GPU afloat. I'm talking about stuff that comes with 200w+ power bricks here. I don't mind terribly plugging in the power adapter separately, just don't make me do what Lenovo did and plug TWO POWER BRICKS INTO THE DOCK. That's a bit much. - No damn 3.5mm headphone + mic jacks (extra audio chipset that is inevitably worse than the one built in and much much worse than a proper external pro interface), built-in wifi, bluetooth, built-in m.2 / 2.5" SSD...I love the SD card reader personally but make it a damn good fast one or just give me another couple of USB ports instead.
The closest I can get to this today is the Lenovo workstation dock, which they now make in a TB4 flavor featuring: 1 x 3.5mm Audio combo Jack 4 x USB-A 1 x USB-C 1 x HDMI 2.1 2 x Displayport 1.4 1 x RJ45 (gigabit) 1 x Thunderbolt (for Host connect) 1 x Thunderbolt (for Device connect)
https://www.sonnetstore.com/products/echo-11-thunderbolt-4-d...
And $40 cheaper than the Kensington branded one.
So even though it's thunderbolt and it works for you - it really is the same thing TFA is talking about.
I don't think that's a good thing though. No adapter/hub should be this complex IMO. I don't know how the ubiquity of USB got us to this point, it seems worse than before.
> Engineers: "Okay... but it's going to be expensive and complicated..."
> Apple: "Money is insignificant next to the power of user experience."
> Intel: "Oh, people are actually using this thing we created?"
> USB-IF: "But us, b..."
> Intel: "So the USB won't let me B. Or let my TB be USB, so let me C."
> USB-IF: "You are again our hearts' delight."
> Customers: "Why is this so complicated? Remember when one connector meant one kind of cable? Those were great days."
And that's how we got here.
No it isn't, lol. Thudernbolt/usb-c docks are a solution to a made-up problem.
It is absolutely possible to have all the necessary ports on a modern slip laptop.
Just look at the Dell Latitude 7390:
- https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/dell-latitude-7390
- https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Latitude-7390-i5-8350U-SS...
> Motorola 68000 CPU running at 12 MHz, 512 KB of workspace RAM, and a 1 MB frame buffer.
vs the Mac 128K with
> Motorola 68000 microprocessor running at 7.8336 MHz, connected to 128 KB RAM shared by the processor and the display controller
It notes that the Kingston, Sonnet, and others are rebrands of the Goodway DBD1100.
They are virtually silent, have capable, reliable TB3 hubs. Outside the Mac Pro line, the BM eGPUs offered graphics capability to macs going back years that was only surpassed with the recent ASi MBPs.
They are remarkably stable and ultimately a great value.
I also recommend the TS3 Plus, though it’s not as rock solid. Mine sometimes has a high frequency noise issue when the DP port is in use, though your resolution changes the hum’s volume. Also it freezes up occasionally, but I used it for 2 years without many troubles.
Having heard positive things about caldigit, I got their USB-C Pro Dock and I get frequent screen blanking with my M1 Mac, and often some of the USB ports fail to work. I don't use the ethernet port, but I think it is a Realtek (so likely the same thing the author is complaining about)
I have spoken to caldigit support and so far they have replaced the dock once, and now have gone pretty quiet.
Your comments about the Screen Blanking sound bad and are are likely correct, I only have an Intel Mac to compare.
The funny thing is that 2015 Intel MBP (with Apple TB2->TB3 adapter) with the same dock and same monitor didn't blank or flicker. I guess it is something about the new Apple TB implementation in M1.
I’m not pushing 4K though, so mileage may vary. I’ve got a 27” TB2 Apple Cinema Display via TB2 to USB-C and a Dell via Display port.
As a guy working with Raspberry Pi and 3D printers a lot in my free time it is SO NICE to have the card reader right up front and easy to access. I also love un/plugging just one cord when I’m on the go.
(1) I keep my MBP closed. It take 10-30 seconds for it to wake up on keypress. That's so long that I often have no way to tell if it noticed I pressed key.
(2) If XCode is debugging and the screen sleeps then MacOS 12 never recovers unless I disconnect the cable, open the lid, get it wake up on the laptop monitor, and then plug it back in and finally close the lid.
I get why #2 is rare and therefore not fixed but still (T_T)
Pretty lame that one of the "best" laptop mfgs in the world can't make docks work right with one of the biggest CPU / IP mfgs in the world. Laptop sleep states were a problem back in the early 90s on Linux...some things really never change.
So for the feedback on keypress, I'm using devices with backlight. Both keyboard or mouse work fine, once they light up, you know that it is waking up.
I've tested 5+ TS3 Plus docks, and all of them have a coil whine, which can be heard in a quiet room, without playing any music.
Sometimes I like to work in silence, and the coil whine really bothers me.
Probably time for a change I guess.
Otherwise both worked fine allowing me to drive 3 screens on the OG M1 mbp. They each cost around 350 eur though.
CalDigit's TS4 has Ethernet (2.5 GbE). I've been a happy TS3 user for years.
I had bad luck with the QNAP QNA-T310G1S and Sonnet Solo 10G SFP+ (surprising as their stuff is usually rock-solid) -- both based on the AQC100S chipset and the aQuantia AQtion driver just didn't work for me under LTS Ubuntu.
[0]: https://www.razer.com/gaming-pc-accessories/razer-thunderbol...
Do not waste your money on high end consumer stuff, the enterprise stuff is better and the market is flooded with disposed units…
Work in a large F50 and all the enterprise grade ones we've had are decent.
This is the current model they are giving folks:
https://us.targus.com/products/usb-c-universal-dv4k-docking-...
I've been running an Intel MacBook Pro (last intel version I think) on it the last few months with 2 external HP displays, keyboard, mouse, and it is a solid performer.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-graphics-adapter,30...
And good luck getting anything close to RTX 3090Ti performance in a laptop. It'd basically be a toasted oven on your lap.
Desktops can just sink a ton more heat, and as process shrinks and die size increases have gotten us less and less additional performance each year, we're just pushing power up to the point now where a TOTL gaming desktop is pulling close to 1KW. A laptop will never come close. If you really do want to try a literal desktop CPU in a laptop, there are mfgs like Eurocom and Sager that will sell you one, just don't expect it not to throttle a lot under actual heavy workloads.
Wait, what? Are you like cryptomining or something? That's actually insane. I charge two electric cars at home, work from home using a powerful workstation, and my electricity is about £100/month. How do you manage to spend 800 euro a month????
That might not be a full-time goal. Some want a machine that works on the move but can be expanded to bigger screens and such when at certain locations (office and/or home). A laptop and dock allow this compromise.
It is a compromise, not one suitable for all. But it is the list inconvenient option for many.
I wouldn't say "some". Probably 90% of developers I know require exactly this, in fact off the top of my head I can't think of any who don't. Even the permanent, full-remote, no-really-there-is-literally-no-office types want to sit in a different room sometimes or work from a coffee shop.
It's pretty rare to have a "workstation" setup that cannot be moved.
'... where we came in. Having to buy an external dock is such a compromise! I want to have all the ports on my laptop!'
'But if all your peripherals are connected directly, you need to connect and disconnect them every time, so you have to compromise on mobility. Isn't this...'
And different variations on this same spiral.
Sure, you could buy a separate desktop for that, but if you also go portable, don't want to bother with some kind of online sync solution, and want to move between laptop mode for on the go and something docked to big monitors and a no laptop keyboard/mouse for when you are at your primary workspace, getting a good laptop plus a dock rather than spending more for a laptop plus a separate desktop which makes you have to compromise on syncing somehow makes a lot of sense.
(Obviously, if you need desktop processing power, thermal envelopes mean that laptops aren't going to be competitive. But if that's your need, you aren't going to be looking at laptops, and how to connect peripherals isn't going to be your limiting factor.)
I find it surprising that the appeal of the above would be confusing for anyone.
The only things that move around are my laptop and I. I don't want to carry around a desktop computer and plug in power, screens, and USB hub every time I switch desks.
USB remains, of course, a donkey circus. Everyone involved in USB ought to be ashamed of themselves.
So it might be lunacy for you but it's not necessarily lunacy for others. And given the amount of market research these guys do I suspect the "never plug anything else in" crowd is pretty significant.
I don’t use external monitors with that device which probably makes a difference but IMO the point still stands - I think there is a silent majority of people who don’t want or care about more ports.
but I can comment on what a polygot cross-platform cross-cloud software engineer who supports a plethora of native portable devices integrations require, and thats USB hubs with ports coming out the ye-ha - otherwise im constantly playing musical chairs.
It's a nice way to avoid the lunacy here.
But why did you have to begin your comment with the condescending “all the sheep/ad devs”? It makes you look insecure and I only read beyond that because your comment was so brief.
There are machines with lots of ports and machines with few and someone’s choice of which to use is not a moral judgement.
I'm using a BT mouse explicitly not to bother with a stupid "2.4GHz USB Receiver" and keep one (USB-A!) port free.
Flash drive? Hardly ever used one; networking existed before they were invented.
I just need to swap the USB-C connector between the three and I get the same displays and peripherals.
Doing this with a "healthy array of external ports" would be a huge pain in the ass.
One for USB-C to Ethernet adapter.
One for Apple adapter that I plug USB-C power into, plus HDMI, plus a mouse.
Always works. Though it can’t prevent me forgetting to plug the Ethernet adapter in and realising I’ve been on wifi all day.
Sure this is relatively new and a ton of hubs are shit but this will only become better.
I can use my Anker mini dock on my laptop, switch and Samsung s22.
I just had to get IT to swap mine out at work last week.
We have hundreds of CalDigit and OWC docks.. tons have failed. I had an OWC one fail a couple years ago as well.
And yah, these things cost as much as a Chromebook or a cheap windows notebook.
I have used them with my MacBooks over the years as well as my gaming PC (ASUS ProArt B550 motherboard), and they are the most reliable part of my desktop setup. They are not just reliable, but reliably fast. I get full gigabit ethernet speed, fast USB transfer speeds, and fast SD card reading, without fail, every time.
Two of them would buy a complete Ryzen mini-PC, which could be another way to convey how hard it must be to make a “decent” thunderbolt dock.
I’d been thinking about this and want to add to the evidence that even though MacBooks were USB-C only for years and years Apple never shipped a dock they only shipped single port dongles.
No way would Apple not sell a $500-$800 dock that could “solve the usb-c problem” unless there was a good reason and I think the reason is this solution is inherently janky for some unsolvable engineering reason and only single port cables are reliable to the level Apple was happy with.
I had two of them with 3 Sabrent Thunderbolt SSDs each. So when you setup a RAID level and then copy data from A to B, it did crash for me each time. For copy I used "Carbon Copy Cloner"
In fact I go so far to say Thunderbolt is not reliable at all for 24/7 use, as it gets much hotter and currently would require active cooling to prevent throttling.
On my M1 Mac mini, between the OWC dock and another dongle (bus powered) and the remaining ports on the Mac, I can run 10+ drives with no problem plus multiple peripherals. That may seem excessive, but when you’re juggling between drives trying to find old projects for people or trying to build a demo reel, it speeds up the process immensely. It also enabled me to consolidate a bunch of old 1 to 3 TB drives onto a couple of master 16 TB drives with everything in front of me at once, saving a ton of time, stress, and double checking.
Frankly it’s just nice not having to unplug something two or three times a day just to be able to plug in something else. I always have an available port now and it’s got me so much better organized.
This is a known failure mode, but it doesn't hit everybody. It is solely an Apple software fault as older OSs do not exhibit it. I really wish I knew what the issue was.
On the plus side, I found this so infuriating that I finally threw all in and switched to Linux full-time (Lenovo X1 Carbon with a ThinkPad dock) and haven't looked back since.
Side note: practically every thunderbolt dock I have works fine with every x86 laptop I have running either Windows or Linux (including the Caldigit!). YMMV.
If it needs to be Thunderbolt and money is no object, there is the Apple Studio Display with 3 USB-C ports.
Gets a solid 980Mbits symmetric on the ethernet port, 90W of power delivery, etc. It's a lifesaver swapping just the one cable between my PC and laptop.
Works in USB-C mode too.
With this dock, I was able to run:
- 2 4K monitors - Gigabit Ethernet - USB-A - Audio connection for speakers - Power
all on one USB-C cable to the laptop. It also has an SD slot and a front-facing USB-A port for thumb drives, etc.
I was happy with mine until I started using an extra display with it recently. The main display is hooked up via DisplayPort. The problem arose when I added a second display over USB C.
For some reason, when I plug the monitor into the dock, there's a faint electrical noise. If I plug the monitor into a USB C port on the laptop instead, it's perfectly quiet. Maybe I should attempt HDMI instead. Either way it's frustrating.
I’m able to switch my personal (Lenovo) and work (Dell) laptops, mostly without issue. I say without issue because the Dell/Intel only supports HBM2 so won’t do two monitors if one of them is more than 1080p.
I settled on using the HDMI out from the laptop to split the difference in frustration and convenience.
It works fine on ThinkPads. Unless you are using Linux, where 4k@60Hz does not work due to lane misconfiguration (maybe this is fixed by now?). On Macs, I have found this Dock to be a complete disaster. It would often not charge unless you plug/unplug the Dock several times. Also Ethernet often doesn't work (it uses a Realtek NIC). I had two and sold both of them, because they are practically unusable with Macs, and replaced them by Startech Thunderbolt 3 Docks, which work great.
I went through 2 of these and finally bought generic usb C hubs and run 2x usbc->HDMI for 2x displays.
This is cheaper in the same way I don't use a KVM and instead change the inputs in my monitor (Also, I'd have to figure out what DP KVM supports G-Sync and 1440p 165hz).
It’s impossible to find any KVM at any price point that works with 120Hz, and certainly not 120Hz@3840x1600. Forget about G-Sync.
I resorted to just keeping short USB and DP or TB->DP cable extenders plugged into the computer ports and have a “cable zone” where I just unplug and replug all the cables to switch machines. The short extensions are to protect the ports in the machines from wearing out.
It’s way cheaper than any KVM and it actually works.
Level1Techs a small shop that I discovered via their YouTube channel. While they don't manufacturer the KVM themselves (all to common, see the OP link), they look to have done rigorous testing and compatibility analysis. They claim it works up to 3840x2160@120hz because it supports DP 1.4.
https://store.level1techs.com/products/14-display-port-kvm-s...
I actually did many days of research into assembling my own KVM. HDMI is surprisingly straightforward but DP is a nightmare of nested standards. Just one example: There is support for running i2c tunneled through another protocol. The biggest issue is the link speeds that a DP1.4 cable runs at. The chips needed to do the switching are expensive and pretty much need to be machine assembled. When you get to those frequencies the trace design and board composition even become a factor.
After all that I don't find the $299+ for a good KVM to actually be that excessive. It's surprising how difficult it is to electronically do "I unplug cable and plug another one in".
I don't even need stuff like display spoofing, etc, since I only use one machine at a time and don't constantly switch, but it was just way too much work to put together. If you only need slower link speeds it's doable.
I do dev and browsing work at 30hz and the only thing I notice is the little gaps when moving the mouse fast.
I just notice discomfort when my monitor isn't >90Hz or so. On Windows it occasionally will reset to 60Hz, maybe due to video card driver updates? I could probably re-adjust back to 60Hz in a few weeks but I don't see the point of going through the discomfort, especially when I occasionally do play games where the higher frame rate makes a much more drastic difference.
So now, comically, I have to have a type-C Ethernet adapter connected to the back of my Thunderbolt dock...
It has some Windows specific features that don’t work with Apple machines. So DYOR.
Even the OWC brand one I had was flakey, at similar $200-400 price point.
is there a USB-C option for me, or is my best bet a USB-A hub, a USB a-to-c adapter, and a usb c-to-a adapter.
https://www.fivebelow.com/products/4-port-type-c-charging-hu...
I'll have saved enough to send him to College.
.
Hack 1. Gas light your children ...
Since "real" USB-C hubs seem to be garbage, why use one?