Ranting about modern laptop docks: I remember the good ol' days when you could buy a splitter for a dollar at radio shack and turn your single coax cable into 2, and have your TV in 2 rooms instead of 1, and not pay the technician $100 for the privilege. It just doesn't seem to work that way anymore. While I fundamentally disagree that USBc port replication streams are worth nearly the price everyone is charging, I cannot argue that they are more complicated than old splitters. We're muxing and demuxing and other fancy stuff here, so I guess that's why folks are paying hundreds of dollars. Ranting about DisplayLink: My company supplied laptop uses linux, and displaylink isn't directly supported on anything other than ubuntu. This leads to general incompatibility and makes anything with displaylink strictly a windows (and maybe MAC) technology at the time I'm writing this. I tried very hard to find a non-displaylink dock, and they are rare and even more expensive. So I am forced to accept how things are instead of how I wish they could be. Anyway, ranting aside, this thing has worked quite well for me. I wanted to be able to support 3 monitors, and have a handful of USB ports to work with, and I wanted support for HDMI and DP. This thing meets all the requirements, and it's not $500 so I call this a huge win.736801 My laptop is a Razer Blade 15 base model (2017) and my laptop does not support USBc charging, so I cannot evaluate that aspect. My laptop gets quite warm on the bottom, so I greatly appreciate the design and shape of this dock, as it allows me to prop up the laptop to give better airflow and cooling to the underside. No issues with the construction quality, or issues with USB drivers in windows randomly disconnecting and connecting as I have seen on some types of USB hubs (usually due to power issues). Also, I have noticed issues with my laptop lid needing to be opened every 5 minutes to unlock my screen, however, I attribute this to the laptop, not the dock. It seems to only be an issue if/when I launch an application that triggers optimus to switch over to the GPU. After the discrete GPU (gtx 1060 ti) has been tickled, I have to leave the laptop screen open to avoid the display freezing. If I close the lid again, it freezes after ~5min, I have to open the lid to unfreeze it. If I reboot the laptop, it runs fine with the lid closed (until that discrete card gets triggered by optimus again). I tried updating the displaylink driver, but it did not help. Read more
I purchased this to add additional monitors to my laptop. It does what I wanted through USB 3.0. Read more
The docking station took 1min to setup. I'm running 3 external 32" monitors with either a laptop or a desktop and I had no setup problems whatsoever. Also no issues when switching from one computer to another, as is the case with other docking stations I have used in the past. Unfortunately, the unit failed after a few months and working with StarTech was a breeze. I had a brief online chat with a tech, going through some basic troubleshooting questions and he agreed that indeed I had a faulty unit. They sent me instructions for the next steps and within a few days I had a brand new unit. Best customer support experience ever! Would buy again a StarTech product without hesitation. Read more
This filled my need for a USB 3 docking station that would drive 2 monitors with my computer image across 2 screens. The DP supports my 2560x1440 display through a StarTech 4-port USB DP KVM Switch and an HD display through a separate HDMI KVM switch. Now, I have up to 4 PCs driving a dual-monitor set-up. Everyone comes into my office and asks how many computers I have :) This docking station is a level above most others, especially in this price range. It has all the ports I need, and lots of USB 3s, not a bunch of USB 2s like you get with others. I tried a sexy USB-C model from another source, but my laptop's port just was not up to the task. And, only 1 of my laptops even has USB-C, so it really was not as flexible as I needed. In a couple years, I hope all PCs use the same level of USB-C, but as of today, most do not support data, video and especially power all together. This USB 3 model works with all my laptops and I'm not really missing out on bandwidth. I just have to plug my laptop into the USB 3 dock and a power source, then I'm up and running. Last bit of general advice - if you're like me and you buy lots of stuff on Amazon, especially Electronics, then you must use FakeSpot to root out all of the fake reviews that some of the sellers use. 4 or 5 stars just doesn't mean the same thing if it's coming from fake review(ers). Read more
This worked great as I had a work laptop that did not have a thunderbolt connection plus with the driver installed. I was able to get three separate monitors on my windows laptop. I tried literally seven other products all of which did not work. This one is the best four I would definitely recommend. Read more
I bought the USB3DOCKH2DP version (the triple monitor support one) back in January of 2019, so I've had the product for about 6 months. PROS: - LOVE the gigabit ethernet. Which is half the reason I bought the dock. - Having the triple monitor support is really the other half the reason I bought the dock. - The aux jacks on the back also save me from needing an extra port to plug into my computer. Also very appreciated :) CONS: While it mostly meets my needs it could still improve. Software/driver cons: - My biggest issue is that it doesn't support Night Shift on Mac. Since I spend an average of 15+ hours a day on my computer not having night shift causes a lot of eye strain (Having this would definitely make me want to recommendation this to my coworkers who are also looking for docs and increase my review) Hardware cons: (not going to impact my review, but buyer beware) - It often draws too much power from my USB port my mac will randomly disable the device which forces me to restart my Mac which impacts my productivity. - It came with too many power adapters. I'm honestly not sure what do with them all. It also makes the power brick unnecessarily larger. - It's pretty bulky... I'm not sure what I expected, but it's quite thick and my aluminum laptops have a hard time resting on it without sliding around. :( Read more
