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Italy, Rome
1 Level
739 Review
59 Karma

Review on πŸ’» High-Performance Plugable USB C Dock: 85W Charging, Thunderbolt 3 & USB-C MacBook Compatibility, 4K@30Hz HDMI, Ethernet, USB 3.0 Ports, USB-C PD, VESA Mount Included by Aaron Romero

Revainrating 2 out of 5

Nice device but not the right solution for my application

This is my review of the Plug-in USB-C Dock with 85W charging. Based on previous positive experiences with plug-in products (try saying it three times faster!) I bought this USB-C dock with the intention of using it with a late 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro: Connect Two external 3.5" USB 3.0 bus-powered hard drives and occasionally charge your peripherals (Bluetooth headphones, iPhone, etc.) - no USB peripherals such as a keyboard, mouse or graphics tablet. Two bus-powered hard drives were too heavy for him in terms of "waking up from sleep", ie many "drive not properly ejected" messages would appear on the screen. Neither the HDMI ports nor the Ethernet ports were used on the MBP 13". So this application was a frustrating exercise - a USB 3.0 hub would be the best solution. I reverted to using Apple adapters to connect the device directly to be connected to the MBP 13". and bought a 6-60W USB anchor port wall charger to charge various phones, tablets, handheld devices, etc. Put the USB-C plug-in dock back to work for a month - swap between my late 2016 MacBook Pro 15" and My employer successfully shipped a Dell 85w laptop that kept the MBP charged, the Ethernet and HDMI ports worked as expected and I enjoyed using the VESA mount attached to my inexpensive LG LED monitor which drives a bus powered SDD (old Samsung 840 120GB running with an OWC Express USB 3.0 Enclosure) resulted in an awkward "Disk was not ejected properly" warning message. I'm not sure if this is the case This error is a result of macOS or a pluggable USB-C dock, but because it doesn't occur with my pluggable USB 2.0 hub, nor when plugged directly into a port on an MBP is. With Dell, it was convenient to swap out one laptop for another in my limited workspace and connect to a monitor via HDMI and power, but I could connect to an ethernet connection that worked with Dell, so I grabbed one direct connection from router to back dell. Not perfect, but I just wasn't confident enough with this purchase to troubleshoot further. The straw that broke the camel's back was the sudden onset of line hiss on my Yamaha HS5 nearfield monitors after about three weeks of use with the MBP 15." While troubleshooting (removing devices from the signal chain) I was surprised to find that the factory supplied plug-in USB 3.0 cable from docking station to MBP was the culprit. At that point I stopped using the pluggable USB-C dock. So after a year of trying to use this dock successfully I have come to the conclusion that this dock is not the right solution for my intended application. I then gave it to a family member to use where it excels: Ethernet, HDMI, Power Delivery, and "dumb" USB peripherals. I recently purchased a CalDigit TS3+ (during a back to school promotion) and am very happy with this decision. Plugable isn't finished yet - I'm happy with the other four devices I bought.

Pros
  • Easy to read control panel
Cons
  • I will add later