3 ms·

Could you expand on this? I've been eyeing the Belkin.

wcfields 13y ago
Nothing personal/technological; the reviews of it have been very positive. It's the $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous. (Though I know it takes a lot of R&D.. etc..., but this is just how Firewire devices were: full of promise, but are few and far between plus priced too high)
- venus 13y ago
  > $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous Is it? Sounds pretty normal to me. Belkin is a pretty good brand and charges accordingly. Like Apple, really. I think that for their target market $300 won't be a barrier at all. In fact after checking it out I'm pretty tempted...
  - ssafejava 13y ago
    $300 is about 3 times what it should be, in my opinion. It's not much more than a fancy USB hub with audio & a NIC. USB 3.0 hubs with NICs are about $50-60, or one could easily use a regular USB 3.0 hub and attach a USB NIC, sound card, etc. Perhaps not as clean but a hell of a lot cheaper. Even worse, the price is not really $300 - in order to use it, you'll need a thunderbolt cable which is nearly $40 (!). There are few to no storage solutions that can benefit from thunderbolt over USB 3.0 and the whole ecosystem reeks of greed and vendor lock-in. No, thanks.
    - beedogs 13y ago
      The cable costs $40 because there are two discrete processors at either end. Intel charges about $20 each for those processors. The margins on Thunderbolt cables are probably a lot worse than you'd think.
      - commandar 13y ago
        It doesn't matter why the cable is $40, just that you need a $40 cable to use a $300 dock.
    - venus 13y ago
      What are you smoking? You cannot get anything even remotely similar for $100. > one could easily use a regular USB 3.0 hub and attach a USB NIC, sound card, etc. Perhaps not as clean but a hell of a lot cheaper Great, go and string together your tangle of bargain basement crap all over your desk. The whole point of these docks is to not do that. You guys are not in the target market. I'm surprised you even have macs.

Nothing personal/technological; the reviews of it have been very positive. It's the $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous. (Though I know it takes a lot of R&D.. etc..., but this is just how Firewire devices were: full of promise, but are few and far between plus priced too high)

venus 13y ago
> $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous Is it? Sounds pretty normal to me. Belkin is a pretty good brand and charges accordingly. Like Apple, really. I think that for their target market $300 won't be a barrier at all. In fact after checking it out I'm pretty tempted...
- ssafejava 13y ago
  $300 is about 3 times what it should be, in my opinion. It's not much more than a fancy USB hub with audio & a NIC. USB 3.0 hubs with NICs are about $50-60, or one could easily use a regular USB 3.0 hub and attach a USB NIC, sound card, etc. Perhaps not as clean but a hell of a lot cheaper. Even worse, the price is not really $300 - in order to use it, you'll need a thunderbolt cable which is nearly $40 (!). There are few to no storage solutions that can benefit from thunderbolt over USB 3.0 and the whole ecosystem reeks of greed and vendor lock-in. No, thanks.
  - beedogs 13y ago
    The cable costs $40 because there are two discrete processors at either end. Intel charges about $20 each for those processors. The margins on Thunderbolt cables are probably a lot worse than you'd think.
    - commandar 13y ago
      It doesn't matter why the cable is $40, just that you need a $40 cable to use a $300 dock.
  - venus 13y ago
    What are you smoking? You cannot get anything even remotely similar for $100. > one could easily use a regular USB 3.0 hub and attach a USB NIC, sound card, etc. Perhaps not as clean but a hell of a lot cheaper Great, go and string together your tangle of bargain basement crap all over your desk. The whole point of these docks is to not do that. You guys are not in the target market. I'm surprised you even have macs.