Review on Kensington Universal Notebook Docking Ethernet by Zack Frazier

I bought the dock to use my small Acer Aspire One netbook (also bought from Revain) as a desktop. As you'd expect, anything with the word "universal" in the title is going to be a bit whimsical. But it works flawlessly and effortlessly with my Canon PIXMA 490 printer and Logitech Cordless Desktop S520 keyboard and mouse. It's really plug and play. It took two emails to get my old VGA monitor working as a netbook mirror and a phone call to Kensington tech support which resolved the issue in seconds. The documentation is nothing more than a simple setup guide. The device sets itself up when you first connect it to the netbook, but it takes a little trial and error to get it working properly. I am very happy with the purchase. I would have given it a higher rating were it not for the stubbornness of the external monitor. If someone allows the netbook to go to sleep, the device must be unplugged from both the netbook and the power cord, restarted, and the power and USB connection reconnected to the laptop. Doing all of these will re-enable the external monitor. There are workarounds for this, but it's a pain. The bottom line is that the device works as advertised and allows you to use a tiny (but powerful) netbook without the need for a desktop computer. It is clear that this setup is only suitable for business and not for gaming. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has the patience to tune it to perfection. Full disclosure: My other computers are MACs. The Kensington dock also has a DVI connector, which I haven't tried. I suspect the device can do a lot more than what I've tried. I still have two unused USB ports and a headphone and microphone jack. By the way, I would give Kensington Support somewhere between four and five stars.