Price When Reviewed

299.99

Best Prices Today: Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Dock

$284.99

$299.99

A couple of Thunderbolt docks hint their lineage to the Mac world, the place direct Thunderbolt show connections are extra widespread than the HDMI or DisplayPort ports of the Windows world. Satechi’s Thunderbolt 4 Dock falls into this class, with three upstream Thunderbolt 4 connections along with a handful of USB connections.

This isn’t an issue for a Windows laptop computer, although it’s uncertain you already personal a show with the right Thunderbolt 4 connection. Instead, you’ll have to match the ports in your monitor with an middleman cable. That means buying a further USB-C (Thunderbolt) to HDMI cable or two, which can price an additional $20 or so per cable. Alternatively, you might additionally buy a Thunderbolt-equipped display, although these are nonetheless comparatively unusual and costly!

Either approach, you’ll possible be tacking a number of further {dollars} on high of the price of Satechi’s Thunderbolt 4 Dock, a selection which different docks don’t drive upon you.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best Thunderbolt docks to study competing merchandise.

Satechi’s Thunderbolt 4 Dock measures 7.5 inches lengthy by 3.5 inches deep, with no vertical stand or mounting possibility. A 135W energy brick delivers energy to the dock, which then passes 96W of energy to your laptop computer through a 31-inch Thunderbolt 4 twine that ships contained in the field.

We’ve by no means run right into a state of affairs the place a dock has overheated. Satechi’s dock didn’t break that development, and the dock’s aluminum and plastic chassis dissipated warmth simply wonderful. There’s a small LED indicating when the machine is powered on (white for energy, yellow for powered and related), however no energy button.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Satechi’s Thunderbolt 4 Dock mounts a UHS-II SD card reader on the entrance of the dock, with no microSD possibility. Next to it’s a single USB 2.0 5Gbps port, with BC 1.2 charging, which might ship as much as 7.5W of energy. Unfortunately, the dock handed solely 3.8W, which can cost a smartphone slowly. (On the opposite hand, you possibly can at all times plug your cellphone right into a free Thunderbolt 4 port on the rear of the dock, which transferred a hefty 12.2W, sufficient to fast-charge a smartphone.) The entrance of the Satechi Dock additionally features a headphone jack, plus the USB-C port for the cable connection to your laptop computer.

Two Kensington security-lock ports are mounted on the aspect of the dock. On the rear, Satechi contains three 10Gbps USB-A ports, none of which ship any energy in any respect. There’s additionally a gigabit Ethernet port, the three upstream Thunderbolt 4 ports, and the facility connector.

We selected to check the Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Dock utilizing a direct Thunderbolt connection to 1 4K show, and an middleman cable to a different 4K show. Both took a number of seconds to determine a connection, however did so. (We tried connecting to a 3rd 1440p show utilizing the third port, simply to verify, however the dock wouldn’t set up a connection, which is okay.) We think about establishing the 2 4K connections, nevertheless, to be the usual.

Mark Hachman / IDG

In our assessments, we streamed 4K60 video from each on-line and offline sources, with only a few dropped frames, together with video performed again from an exterior arduous drive. We noticed a number of hiccups when enjoying again video from Netflix, and video streamed from Amazon Prime performed again in a decrease decision than anticipated. After additional assessments, together with a velocity check that measured the efficiency of the dock’s Ethernet port, we concluded that it was the ISP, not the dock, at fault.

We did discover, nevertheless, that this Satechi dock will often disconnect, randomly, maybe twice a day. We additionally skilled the identical factor with a second, completely different Satechi dock, so maybe it’s one thing with the inner design. It’s an irritating annoyance, although not catastrophic: The connected shows merely disconnected for a second or so, then reconnected. Nothing else appeared to vary.

What we’ve come to search out in our assessments of each the best Thunderbolt docks and best USB-C hubs and dongles is that producers aren’t afraid to combine and match ports and options. At press time, Plugable’s 5-in-1 Thunderbolt Hub was our decide for the very best Thunderbolt hub—but it surely presents so much much less (for lots much less cash) than the Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Dock does.

If you don’t thoughts spending a bit extra for extra options (and cables), Satechi’s Thunderbolt 4 Dock is a good decide. Otherwise, you’ll discover barely extra inexpensive choices in our dock roundup, with devoted show ports that ought to match your present monitor.