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I've gone through a number of Thunderbolt docks over the last few years. I tend to prefer docks to hubs because you tend to use your laptop at several fixed pos
by jmyeet 5y ago
I've gone through a number of Thunderbolt docks over the last few years. I tend to prefer docks to hubs because you tend to use your laptop at several fixed positions, each of which might have 1 or more monitors, a network cable, accessories (eg keyboard, mouse, camera) and so on. It's easier to just plug in one cable from the dock to the Macbook that'll do everything including power it.
A good example of this is the Caldigit TS4 [1]. All the ports you could possibly want. Here's what I've learned.
First and foremost, you'll be surprised at how many issues come down to a given cable being bad. It's gotten to the point that whenever I buy any sort of cable I typically buy 2 or even 3 at the same time because I assume 1 will be bad or will go bad.
Second, also to do with cables, don't use any cable to connect from your dock to your laptop longer than a foot. These cables that can take power and full bandwidth for displays and accesories are the most technically demanding. Keep them as short as possible. And again, have spares.
Third, while I'm a traditionalist and like a wired connection (and thus an Ethernet port), it's really optional now, particularly at home where you have some control over the network. Like I can get easily get 500+ Mbps over Wifi at home. This of course assumes a sufficient Internet connection but if you don't have that then Ehternet is even less necessary.
If you have flickering display in particular, your first instinct should be to blame the cable.
[1]: https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-station-4/ https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-station-4/
- fatnoah 5y agoI hear you on the cable. Even with the dock I got working, I was still banging my head against the wall for a bit until I tried a different Thunderbolt cable.
- HNHatesUsers 5y ago
- btgeekboy 5y agoI mostly agree with this, but not necessarily the part about the Ethernet connection. If you do a significant number of meetings with video conferencing, you'll be much better off with a wired connection where the latency and jitter are both lower than over the typical WiFi. It's one of the easiest things you can do to improve how your face and voice appear to your colleagues.
- shitlord 5y agoI also prefer docks to hubs, for the same reasons you mentioned. There are still some pretty big gaps which need to be addressed before we can use a single cable for everything. First, Mac OS still doesn't support DisplayPort MST. If you have two or more non-Thunderbolt monitors, you'll need to use more than one port. Second, many companies require their employees to use tokens such as Yubikeys, which are USB devices plugged into a laptop operating on human touch. Even if you dock your laptop, you will need to keep it within arm's reach so you can touch the Yubikey. You could remove the Yubikey from the laptop and plug it into your dock, but that defeats the purpose of docking. Ultimately, I just want more desk space, and I consider both the dock and the laptop to be clutter.
- ubercow13 5y ago>If you have two or more non-Thunderbolt monitors, you'll need to use more than one port Is this still true with TB4? TB4 docks can have 3 downstream Thunderbolt ports and afaik each of them can power a single DisplayPort display without MST being involved, and without the display having to be a 'Thunderbolt' display, which I think just meant that they had a TB3 hub in to allow daisychaining.
- CharlesW 5y ago> If you have flickering display in particular, your first instinct should be to blame the cable. Any recommendations? I'm very happy with Monoprice's TB cables (https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=24721 https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=24721), which start at $27 but are a lot cheaper than Apple's.
- jmyeet 5y agoSo for things like iPhone cables, I just buy whatever nylon-braided cable Anker is selling now. I've been using Anker cables for years now and they've been reliable. But for things like TB and DP cables, I don't have any particular brand recommendations. I'm not sure it matters. I just find something with a good rating on Amazon and buy 2 of them. Whatever gets labelled as Amazon Basics has thus far seemingly worked well enough.
- AdamJacobMuller 5y agoWhen I was having major issues with my first 5K displays I bought a few of the CalDigit cables (https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-usb-4-cable/ https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-usb-4-cable/). Not cheap, but, they work great.
- evilduck 5y agoHmm, so out of curiosity I looked up both, Apple’s are actually cheaper per centimeter than MP, but don’t sell shorter overall cheaper options if that’s what you can use.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- j_crick 5y ago> All the ports you could possibly want. No HDMI.
- jmyeet 5y agoTrue. Personally, I never use HDMI but YMMV. You can of course use a USB-C to HDMI cable however.
- WaxProlix 5y agoI've had some mediocre luck with USBC cables, paying premium for stuff that has the same below-spec performance as the bulk I got from monoprice a few years ago at a fraction of the cost. How do you evaluate 'nice' cables before shelling out money for garbage?
- eek2121 5y agoEnsure the certification is legitimate, for starters.