Great, steady picture high quality breaks down barely with video
No USB-C ports
No fast-charging ports
Our Verdict
Plugable’s UD-6950PDZ USB-C Triple Display dock is a distinct segment DisplayHyperlink dock, admirable for what it will probably do however with particular limitations.
Price When Reviewed
$199.95
Best Prices Today: Plugable USB-C Triple 4K HDMI and DisplayPort Display Horizontal Docking Station (UD-6950PDZ)
Three shows? Three? If you’re the kind of one who takes a maximalist method to shows, then the Plugable USB-C Triple 4K HDMI and DisplayPort Display Docking Station (UD-6950PDZ) is for you. This DisplayHyperlink USB-C dock provides you the ability of Thunderbolt, however with out the fee — and a few options.
You would possibly contemplate the Plugable UD-6950PDZ to be the bigger cousin of the Plugable UD-6950PDH, a double-display docking station that we reviewed beforehand. Neither the UD-6950PDZ nor the UD-6950PDH are “true” Thunderbolt docks. Instead, they each use the DisplayHyperlink protocol, which approximates Thunderbolt capabilities however makes use of the DisplayHyperlink drivers and protocol as a way of knowledge compression. The distinction between the 2 is that the UD-6950PDH routes two shows over this bus, whereas the UD-6950PDZ that we’re reviewing right here connects three shows as an alternative.
A promoting level of many, although not all, Plugable docks is the inclusion of extra show ports than you would ever need. Most docks ask you to decide on between DisplayPort and HDMI, and even use a direct Thunderbolt connection. Plugable provides each: On the again of the UD-6950PDZ dock are three units of DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4/2.0 ports, as a way to use no matter shows and cables you have got readily available. That’s far more flexibility than the rest available on the market. There are additionally 4 extra 5Gbps USB-A ports.
The Plugable UD-6950PDZ provides simply two 5Gbps USB-A ports on the entrance of the dock, together with a 3.5mm mic/headphone jack. A Kensington lock slot is mounted on the facet.
The dock is constituted of plastic, with venting on the underside. It turned heat underneath load, however to not worrying ranges.
Further studying: See our roundup of the best Thunderbolt docks, which incorporates USB-C DisplayHyperlink docks, to find out about competing merchandise.
The entrance of Plugable’s UD-6950PDZ features a pair of USB-A ports and a headphone/mic jack.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Some phrases about DisplayHyperlink
DisplayLink docks will not be a “cheap” model of Thunderbolt. Instead, they’ve confirmed to be a steady, cheap different to a Thunderbolt dock, sufficient that we lump them into the identical class. They do lack the uncooked horsepower of a 40Gbps Thunderbolt dock, working over a 10Gbps bus as an alternative. On the opposite hand, driving shows tends to devour the majority of that bandwidth — precisely what DisplayHyperlink was designed to offset.
It’s even weirder: Plugable says that the 3-foot cable between its dock and your PC runs at simply 5Gbps, and by some means squeezes three 4K shows price of knowledge over that. Black magic! The included cable was stiffer than I’d like, nonetheless, with not a lot tolerance for my laptop computer’s USB-C port. It virtually felt like I used to be forcing it into the slot.
This dock is powered by the Synaptics DL-6950 chip, which includes what the corporate calls DL Compression 3.0, which does a greater job adapting to the calls for of what you’re seeing on display. What the UD-6950PDZ does is use the DL-6950 chip to kind two units of both an HDMI 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.2 connection, in addition to use your laptop computer’s means to immediately drive HDMI or DisplayPort over a 3rd channel. It’s complicated! Essentially, the dock is doing two-thirds of the work to allow three shows, together with your laptop computer contributing the opposite third. As with most docks of this sort, your expertise will profit from a contemporary laptop computer.
That the Plugable UD-6950PDZ serves a reasonably small area of interest shouldn’t undersell what it will probably do: Crowding three 4K shows onto your desktop remains to be spectacular.
The Plugable UD-6950PDZ can also be dependent in your PC. If your PC’s USB-C port can output DisplayPort 1.4, the dock will help a 4K show at 60Hz. If it solely helps DisplayPort 1.2, 4K30 is the utmost decision it would help. Unfortunately, this may be one of many irritating issues a couple of DisplayHyperlink or Thunderbolt dock, because it’s depending on options that always your laptop computer maker doesn’t essentially spotlight.
The again of the Plugable UD-6950PDZ is chock-full of ports: the ability enter, the downstream USB-C connection, three units of DisplayPort and HDMI connections, plus 4 USB-A ports. Though Plugable’s documentation signifies that one HDMI port is 1.4 and one is HDMI 2.0, they appeared to provide the identical output.
Mark Hachman / IDG
How properly does the Plugable UD-6950PDZ work?
On our check laptops, the Plugable UD-6950PDZ supported three shows: a 1440p widescreen at 100Hz, and two 4K shows operating at 60Hz. (The dock’s show outputs aren’t truly locked to a specific decision; it’s simply that the out there bandwidth is finest suited to a number of shows at sure mounted resolutions.) I attempted a number of configurations and cables, and it doesn’t appear to matter whether or not I used a DisplayPort or an HDMI cable, and the place I plugged it in — the output was the identical.
If you’re working in e-mail, or Excel, or an internet web page with unmoving, mounted content material, try to be completely advantageous with this dock.
Don’t push it too onerous, although. One of the exams we carry out performs again a 4K YouTube video, simply to see what YouTube’s algorithm will ship. The dock additionally performed again Netflix movies on all three screens, proving that DRM didn’t intrude.
The precise YouTube decision (measured by YouTube’s “viewport” description) was lower than what we anticipated, various between a bit underneath 1080p decision and 1440p relying on the setup. Hardly any frames dropped. However, there was some slight, noticeable choppiness in how the frames performed again that would show to be annoying.
We noticed one thing comparable with our storage exams. Running PCMark’s storage benchmark, we recorded about 10MB/s much less bandwidth (120.79MB/s) than different docks we’ve examined, which isn’t unhealthy. But once we examined the storage benchmark whereas streaming our check video, the video dropped 234 out of 10,000 frames, which is much more than we’d hope for. That’s positively noticeable.
There’s one other catch: There aren’t any USB-C ports in any respect, which implies that this dock isn’t an important answer for charging a smartphone from the most typical USB-C chargers. Don’t fear about shopping for an adapter, both: the USB-A ports solely provide 2.4W by our measurements, sufficient to solely slow-charge a smartphone over a number of hours.
The Plugable UD-6950PDZ additionally provides a bit much less energy than different docks, a rated 60W that works out to 56.7W on our exams. That’s completely advantageous for a productiveness laptop computer, but when your laptop computer has a discrete GPU that’s energetic, or if in case you have it operating in a high-performance mode, the port could not provide sufficient energy to cost it whereas on the dock. (In that case, the laptop computer will drain energy, albeit extra slowly than if it had been operating solely on battery.)
Our conclusion? This is a distinct segment dock for individuals who want three shows. Otherwise we’d lean in direction of the dual-display model, the Plugable UD-6950H, at a barely extra inexpensive $200 or so. We additionally miss the shortage of smartphone charging, although it’s not a deal-breaker. What the Plugable UD-6950PDZ accomplishes is spectacular, although it has its limits.
