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If you want a decent dock you have to spend a bit of money. I went through this pain before accepting the cost and buying a CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub[1]. Run's two 4k displays at 60Hz, any peripheral and charges my laptop. So good I bought a second. 1. https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/
When work from home started, I went down this road of madness, and have a drawer full of docks that didn't work properly for my Macbook (properly is defined as works as a USB hub, connection to wired network, charges my Macbook, and lets me connect an external 4k display @ 60Hz). A Plugable Thunderbolt 3 Dock has carried me for 2 years so far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do--they just include the monitor as part of it. That seems to have been the vision since at least 2011 [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Thunderbolt_Display
That was discontinued over 6 years ago. In 2022, it isn't a great monitor, either.
I haven't bought the new studio display, but the Thunderbolt Display was great and the LG UltraFine 5K is, too. Used both as daily drivers (and docking stations) for years. I only haven't bought the new one because that LG one is still going strong.
Regardless: my point is that this certainly seems to be "the vision." You don't need a docking station because your monitor functions as one. If I had to guess, they probably think normal people don't want to buy a docking station and then deal with a series of poorly-integrated peripherals.
[1] https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/apple-studio-display/stan... [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210205
I've gone through a number of Thunderbolt docks over the last few years. I tend to prefer docks to hubs because you tend to use your laptop at several fixed positions, each of which might have 1 or more monitors, a network cable, accessories (eg keyboard, mouse, camera) and so on. It's easier to just plug in one cable from the dock to the Macbook that'll do everything including power it. A good example of this is the…
Any recommendations? I'm very happy with Monoprice's TB cables (https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=24721), which start at $27 but are a lot cheaper than Apple's.
If you want a decent dock you have to spend a bit of money. I went through this pain before accepting the cost and buying a CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub[1]. Run's two 4k displays at 60Hz, any peripheral and charges my laptop. So good I bought a second. 1. https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/
I feel like if you need ethernet, hdmi, DP, etc you should buy a laptop that has those ports on it in the first place.
I'm just hoping that by the time I stop using this M1 laptop there will be alternatives because there's really nothing I like about Apple other than their SoC.
When work from home started, I went down this road of madness, and have a drawer full of docks that didn't work properly for my Macbook (properly is defined as works as a USB hub, connection to wired network, charges my Macbook, and lets me connect an external 4k display @ 60Hz). A Plugable Thunderbolt 3 Dock has carried me for 2 years so far.
And sadly, I own two out of three of those. It's worth noting that the Realtek is crap, even ignoring the OSX driver situation. I have a few of the 2.5GBe dongles to make my synology speak 2.5gb/s (because a modern NAS is 2020 should have more then gigabit, but doens't because reasons). The driver in Linux is hot mess. I seem to have much more luck then some with it.
I've gone through a number of Thunderbolt docks over the last few years. I tend to prefer docks to hubs because you tend to use your laptop at several fixed positions, each of which might have 1 or more monitors, a network cable, accessories (eg keyboard, mouse, camera) and so on. It's easier to just plug in one cable from the dock to the Macbook that'll do everything including power it. A good example of this is the…
> If you have flickering display in particular, your first instinct should be to blame the cable. Any recommendations? I'm very happy with Monoprice's TB cables ( https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=24721 ), which start at $27 but are a lot cheaper than Apple's.
But for things like TB and DP cables, I don't have any particular brand recommendations. I'm not sure it matters. I just find something with a good rating on Amazon and buy 2 of them. Whatever gets labelled as Amazon Basics has thus far seemingly worked well enough.
If you use a laptop with an external monitor, a better idea is to get a premium monitor which handles charging, video, and data transfer of USB devices connected to the monitor for you. This allowed me to get rid off the wonky USBC hubs, but before my employer got me a Dell monitor I didn't know that a single USBC connection can deliver all three.