What Does a Dock Do?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Like this one:

I guess it just means I can connect a laptop to a monitor or proper keyboard I have in my house, for example?

Anything else?

Not sure why some are hundreds of pounds, while others are less than £50.

[BritBronco]

I have a Thunderbolt dock for my thinkpad. Faster connection for devices and it also supplies power so I can keep the power brick in my kit bag for on the go work.

The cheaper ones tend to have less features and ports.

Edited February 6, 2023 by BritBronco

[Matthew S.]

Depends on what the dock supports, that one has 2 HDMI, DP, SD/microSD, 4 USB-A's and 1 USB-PD port and ethernet, combo audio port, so I'd imagine that one is up there in price.

 

There quiet a but more advanced the USB Hubs, hubs actually used the same bus connection and just split it out (thats why USB2 devices connected to USB2 hubs tended to be slower than the spec)., USB-C/TB docks tend to be more akin to a PCI-E Addon card.

[seta-san]

it basically gives you ports for all the things that used to come standard before the laptop thinness wars... because you know what's sexier than an ultra thin laptop? an ultra thin laptop with a dock and/or a bunch of dongles. 

 

the ideal way a dock used to be used is that it would sit on your desk at home or at work and then you would dock into it and immediately give you access to all the devices that were connected to it.

but now docks look like the one you posted. it's less a dock and more of an over glorified dongle that you basically have to carry around with you because that one USB C port you have to share with the charger doesn't suffice anymore.

Edited February 6, 2023 by seta-san

[binaryzero]

Wow..

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/tech-takes/what-is-a-laptop-docking-station

 

[Michael Scrip]

Port Replicator!

😛 

[shockz]

On 06/02/2023 at 15:49, seta-san said:

it basically gives you ports for all the things that used to come standard before the laptop thinness wars... because you know what's sexier than an ultra thin laptop? an ultra thin laptop with a dock and/or a bunch of dongles. 

 

the ideal way a dock used to be used is that it would sit on your desk at home or at work and then you would dock into it and immediately give you access to all the devices that were connected to it.

but now docks look like the one you posted. it's less a dock and more of an over glorified dongle that you basically have to carry around with you because that one USB C port you have to share with the charger doesn't suffice anymore.

Bulky relics of the 2010s at the latest. I'm happy with my little usb c plug that does everything just fine, with a little box off to the side tapped under my desk. 

Those E-Series docks were terrible. The metal bracket encasing the actual data port constantly bent/broke on both the dock and the laptops, and people were unknowingly locking them and ripping them off the docks. The NICs on them were also very slow and the audio outs were also lousy.

[dead.cell]

On 06/02/2023 at 20:21, shockz said:

Bulky relics of the 2010s at the latest. I'm happy with my little usb c plug that does everything just fine, with a little box off to the side tapped under my desk. 

Those E-Series docks were terrible. The metal bracket encasing the actual data port constantly bent/broke on both the dock and the laptops, and people were unknowingly locking them and ripping them off the docks. The NICs on them were also very slow and the audio outs were also lousy.

Man... one of my first tasks as a new desktop support guy was replacing a complete laptop chassis... all because some jackass got angry and ripped it off the dock guy mistakenly lifted the laptop off the dock with too much force. I literally had to move the motherboard and practically everything inside and attached, speakers and all, over to the new chassis. Never again.  

On 06/02/2023 at 13:13, Sir Topham Hatt said:

Not sure why some are hundreds of pounds, while others are less than £50.

I've watched a video where a guy reviewed like 5+ different costly docks... and you'd be surprised how many of them each came with their own assortment of issues. Everything from monitors not coming on or glitching out to poor USB and Ethernet speeds. I actually need a docking station for my MBP but I'm afraid to spend that much money on one only for it to fail on me.

All I can say is that you'd think paying more would result in higher quality, but it doesn't. My best recommendation is to ensure wherever you get it from, that they have a good return policy.  

[binaryzero]

Thunderbolt > USB * docks.

https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-station-4/

[shockz]

On 06/02/2023 at 22:30, dead.cell said:

Man... one of my first tasks as a new desktop support guy was replacing a complete laptop chassis... all because some jackass got angry and ripped it off the dock guy mistakenly lifted the laptop off the dock with too much force. I literally had to move the motherboard and practically everything inside and attached, speakers and all, over to the new chassis. Never again.  

I've watched a video where a guy reviewed like 5+ different costly docks... and you'd be surprised how many of them each came with their own assortment of issues. Everything from monitors not coming on or glitching out to poor USB and Ethernet speeds. I actually need a docking station for my MBP but I'm afraid to spend that much money on one only for it to fail on me.

All I can say is that you'd think paying more would result in higher quality, but it doesn't. My best recommendation is to ensure wherever you get it from, that they have a good return policy.  

I bought this one for my MBP in 2019, I'm using it on an M1 Air now. I've had little issue with it, once and a while I'll plug the dock into the USB c port and it won't charge it, but unplugging it and plugging it back in a few seconds later does the trick. That's probably about a 1 out of 20 occurrence for me.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07M8HLGBF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Honestly looks the same as the OPs model, they probably all come from the same vendor lol.

There is a new model that has more HDMI outs. My biggest complaint is when my laptop goes to sleep it'll make my speakers pop.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Docks, dongles and hubs are terms which are starting to be used interchangeably, but originally were separate devices with different uses.

• What you probably originally thought of when talking about hubs were USB hubs.  These were, well, are kind of like power strips, except that instead of adding more AC outlets to plug things into, they added more USB ports to computers for plugging things into for printers, scanners, connecting webcams and USB flash drives, smartphones, and so forth.  Oh, you might have also had an Ethernet hub at home or at the office for creating a local area network between computers.
   
• Dongles originally started out as little circuit boards encased in a plastic shell with a connector on them (RS-232C serial, parallel, joystick, proprietary cartridge user or expansion ports, etc.) that plugged into a computer, most likely for some kind of hardware-based copy protection scheme for software that ran on the computer.  Then with the advent of laptop computing, the term started to be used to describe short cables with connectors on both ends that were used with PCMCIA or CardBus cards on laptop computers.  One end plugged into a thin(ner) connector on the card, while the other end contained something like a telephone (RJ-11) or Ethernet (RJ-45) jack; a serial, parallel or SCSI  connector, or some other kind of connector that was too tall to fit into the laptop's chassis.  More recently, the term has been used to describe the little transceivers that plug into a USB port for wireless keyboards or mouses, as well as other various RF and Bluetooth radios.  I've also seen it used to describe smaller-sized Wi-Fi adapters and USB flash drives.  Interestingly enough, copy protection dongles are still made these days, but now plug into USB ports and are used to secure software costing thousands or tens of thousands of dollars (or more) used in all sorts of niche computing environments.
   
• Docks were originally devices that a laptop plugged into for connecting various types of cables that would be a pain to have to plug into and unplug from the laptop every day (or multiple times a day if you went to a lot of meetings).  You could plug VGA, serial, parallel and Ethernet cables into the dock, plus a power cable, speakers or a headset, etc. into the dock and just have to attach the dock to a single connector on the laptop.  Docks were specific to specific brands and models of laptop, and the connector(s) to them were usually proprietary.  Many years ago, Texas Instruments was a laptop manufacturer and they had a motorized dock that you would insert your 80386 or 80486 laptop into as well as eject it from, not unlike a VCR.  Some of the early IBM ThinkPad docks had a PCI card slot and 5.25" bay in them so you could add additional storage to your computer, at least while it was docked (I had one with a SCSI card and a DDS tape drive for backing up my ThinkPad 770X, 20 MB at a time).  Gradually, these became smaller and thinner as different types of connections disappeared were replaced by USB and became known as port replicators, and laptops were just dropped down on top of them (very gently, mind you) to connect.

These days, docks tend to be USB C- or Thunderbolt-based, which can sometimes be a bit confusing since (1) the Thunderbolt protocol is sort of a superset of the USB protocol; and (2) they use the same connector.  These docks can contain additional USB ports for plugging in peripherals like printers, scanners, keyboards and mouses, but also things like SD Card readers, various video and audio connectors, an Ethernet port, and maybe an additional Thunderbolt port or two.  They may—or may not—have their own separate power supply for providing power to the laptop into which they are plugged.  I have also seen ones that do not provide power referred to as dongles, too.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

Edited February 7, 2023 by goretsky
Fixed some typos.

[dead.cell]

On 06/02/2023 at 22:37, shockz said:

I bought this one for my MBP in 2019, I'm using it on an M1 Air now. I've had little issue with it, once and a while I'll plug the dock into the USB c port and it won't charge it, but unplugging it and plugging it back in a few seconds later does the trick. That's probably about a 1 out of 20 occurrence for me.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07M8HLGBF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Honestly looks the same as the OPs model, they probably all come from the same vendor lol.

There is a new model that has more HDMI outs. My biggest complaint is when my laptop goes to sleep it'll make my speakers pop.

Thanks, I'll check that out.