Review on Lenovo ThinkPad USA Ultra Dock with 90W AC Adapter (40A20090US) - Retail Packaged: Efficient Connectivity Solution for Enhanced Performance by Cole Dutta

tl;dr: • Multi-monitor runs under Linux • 75-85% discount makes it a hammer deal • Lenovo is making the power adapter cheaper, but that is OK. I got this thing because it's compatible with my personal laptop which, despite having a Thunderbolt port, doesn't support my existing TB3 docking stations. (I think it's the lack of PCI-E bandwidth; my TB docks have two 4k ports and my laptop's TB3 line only has 2x.) My first complaint about this thing is that it doesn't really come with a Power supply comes with fine tip. . Instead, an old barrel-shaped and very short adapter cable was included. This adapter cable gave me problems, but I only noticed the problem after falling and stepping on it, so it can't be Lenovo at all. The problem is that due to small adjustments or a stray light, the device lost power and my monitors didn't come back when I turned it off. I bought a very cheap third party thin tip adapter with decent reviews and haven't had any issues since. LIMITATIONS: For use with multiple monitors, the bandwidth limitations for the two DisplayPort connectors on the docking station only allow 3840 x 2160 @ 30Hz each. This can be a problem if your monitors are consuming a lot of bandwidth. Both monitors I have connected are: one 3840x2160 at 60Hz and the other 2560x1440p at 165Hz. This means that when both are docked, sometimes only one will show up or provide output, but this can be worked around. In addition, each DisplayPort is paired with a different video connector of a different type, and only one of each pair can be used together. So only two monitors are supported. I haven't been able to chain standalone MST hubs to try to add a third monitor, but I've only tried with one so far. LINUX INCOME You need the latest Linux kernel for this. I'm using Linux 5.3 on NixOS. Also, sometimes the monitor is not displayed in the KDE graphical display tools, even if it is visible in the output of `xrandr -q`. But even if the graphics display fails, the VTs almost always work. So I got my monitors to behave this way by telling xrandr to set the resolution and refresh rate from a virtual terminal and then quickly switch back. My shell is Fish, so in my specific case the command is: sleep 10s; xrandr --output DP2-1 --mode 2560x1440 -r 60; xrandr --output DP2-2 -m 2560x1440 -r 60 and then switch back to the display server VT. ADDITIONAL NOTES external monitors.