41–50 of 530 posts
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/
Don’t you mean “so good you bought the company”?
It feels like Apple should have done/should do an official in-house docking system instead of outsourcing such a critical component in the overall system/value proposition.
I actually agree. Normally I'm against proprietary ports, but vendors that have done this in the past have traditionally killed a lot of birds with one stone. Both Dell and Lenovo's docking solutions are fantastic, and don't require expensive hardware to manufacture docks. As a result, you can get the full IO of your computer extended to a dock with 10+ ports for less than $30. Pretty great solution IMO.
The last 5+ years as an Amazon customer have me feeling this way.
> Realtek RTL8153
Could the Realtek issues be related to power?
I have a Tbolt dock which is powered using a DC barrel jack (6.5amps @ 20V). The comparison is not great as the dock (TBT3-UDZ) is not a USB C dock and uses the Intel i211 nic.
The author appears to have found stability with the Anker PowerExpand 8-in-1, which has the buck converter with power management components.
I've had terrible experiences with the Satechi Multiport Adapter V2 and ICY BOX USB-C type adapters.
I suspect that the issues can typically narrow down with any dock to bandwidth or power.
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/
It is missing Ethernet, which seems to be important to the author. 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 th…
Your comments about the Screen Blanking sound bad and are are likely correct, I only have an Intel Mac to compare.
The other day, I was looking at TB4 hubs, and noticed that Every. Single. One. had the exact same layout of ports, with different cases around them. The price range was damn wide, too.
The different one was CalDigit. That does seem to be a good company; though pricey.
This may sound a bit pedantic here, but this statement: " I’m writing this on an Apple MacBook Pro, and all I got was four lousy USB-C ports" Is wildly inaccurate, as the author demonstrates in his conclusions where he explains that he's settled on a Thunderbolt hub. Yes, they're more expensive, and yes, they're harder to find, but the fact is, for this type of use USB-C is kinda junky, and Thunderbolt is a much bett…
This is not the conclusion. the Dell TB16 is just about the worst docking station I've ever used and that was Thunderbolt 3, and their USB-C equivalent (WD16 iirc) worked flawlessly. Likely if you tore down the TB16 you would find the chip mentioned in TFA.
I tried using it on my Mac. But it's on some kind of an Apple blacklist and won't work on Macs. There was some way to enable it, by turning off system protection or some shit... But even then, you could not get all the functionality.
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.
This may sound a bit pedantic here, but this statement: " I’m writing this on an Apple MacBook Pro, and all I got was four lousy USB-C ports" Is wildly inaccurate, as the author demonstrates in his conclusions where he explains that he's settled on a Thunderbolt hub. Yes, they're more expensive, and yes, they're harder to find, but the fact is, for this type of use USB-C is kinda junky, and Thunderbolt is a much bett…
I have the TBT3-UDV and caldigit TS4 TBolt dock. They both rely on DC power supplies and higher quality components (intel NIC, for example). Both have been very stable over the last year for the TS4 and 3 yrs for the TBT3.
This may sound a bit pedantic here, but this statement: " I’m writing this on an Apple MacBook Pro, and all I got was four lousy USB-C ports" Is wildly inaccurate, as the author demonstrates in his conclusions where he explains that he's settled on a Thunderbolt hub. Yes, they're more expensive, and yes, they're harder to find, but the fact is, for this type of use USB-C is kinda junky, and Thunderbolt is a much bett…
This is not the conclusion. the Dell TB16 is just about the worst docking station I've ever used and that was Thunderbolt 3, and their USB-C equivalent (WD16 iirc) worked flawlessly. Likely if you tore down the TB16 you would find the chip mentioned in TFA.
I have had a couple of USB-C hubs and they have worked for both me and my partner. All my work machines are USB-C only and literally the only issue I can remember is where in one conference room the USB-C to HDMI output only went to 2 of the 3 screens on the walls but I think that was something unrelated to the USB-C connection.
Now I don't push my USB-C hubs hard but did run ethernet, HDMI, and USB-A device or two pretty often and everything worked as expected.