Station d'accueil Thunderbolt 4 de Satechi

Amazing, but pricy, Thunderbolt 4 dock

I should have just splurged on a thunderbolt docking station to begin with, instead of trying to make do with cheaper USB/C docks. My last one, an intpw, just stopped working after only 5 months, but before that had been plagued with signal quality issues from the start. I have two 4K monitors connected to this dock, and they are also separately switched to my desktop. I use this to share my monitors between my desktop and a laptop. This works out great because my wife can use my setup with her laptop without logging into my desktop, and vice versa. Just close her laptop’s lid and stick it up against the wall next to the dock. This dock is amazing so far and I have not encountered any issues like momentary signal drops, overheating and freezing, or throttling that I experience with cheaper USB connectivity docks that are limited to 5 Gpbs (USB 3.1 gen 1) or 10 Gpbs (gen 2) bandwidth. I’ve found several hidden gems with this dock, plus some other miscellaneous observations: 1. One hidden gem is the UHS-II SDXC card reader. This is not just a standard card reader; it is a high speed SDXC card reader. UHS-I readers max out at 104 MB/s, whereas USB-II readers max out at 280 MB/s. So, basically 95% of SDXC readers, including virtually all readers not specifically marketed as UHS-II, are the slower UHS-I card readers. Most manufacturers will market UHS-I readers as a “USB 3.0 SD card reader” or some such nonsense. People see 3.0 and think okay great, 625 MB/s. That is incorrect. While the USB end may be 3.0, that specific data point is meaningless by itself, because there are two ends to every cable, and if you attach a UHS-I reader to a USB 3.0 port, it will be limited by the slowest speed: 104 MB/s (UHS-I). In other words, you want to look at the UHS speed, as opposed to the USB speed, when buying a card reader since the UHS speed will be the limiter. I’m getting 245 MB/s read speed off my SDXC card, which is very fast. 2. The front USB 2.0 port doubles as a charging port. What I mean here, is that it provides power even when no laptop is connected to the dock. Most docks will cut power to the USB ports when the laptop is removed or in standby. 3. This has three USB 3.1 gen 2 ports. They are 10 Gbps USB ports. If you have 2 monitors connected, you’re not going to get full bandwidth on all the USB ports, but normally you’d expect to see 5 Gbps USB 3.1 ports on a docking station. I did test the ports to confirm that they are transferring at gen 2 (or at least faster than 5 Gpbs) speeds (see picture). 4. This dock includes its own power supply. It’s a good power supply, rated at 135W, 20V. Many docking stations use USB/c pd and expect you to provide your own power supply for the dock. I like that this one includes the power supply. The only downside is that the connection is a proprietary plug, it’s not a thunderbolt USB/c form factor pd. The other thing to mention is the included power adapter is large, ugly, and gets rather hot. 5. It has three thunderbolt 4 ports. They didn’t even bother attempting to make this more monitor friendly. Up to 2 of the thunderbolt ports can be used for video display at a time. You cannot connect three monitors, the third one won’t work. If you don’t have a USB/c monitor, you can get a USB/c to hdmi or dp adapter to connect your monitor to this dock. Also, keep in mind that you cannot get 40 Gbps from all three ports simultaneously, since there’s only one 40 Gbps input to the laptop, so that bandwidth has to be shared by all the ports on this dock. 6. The design is pretty basic, nothing special, but it looks fine sitting on my desk. The color matches with my monitor base, my laptop, and the mini-hub I use for a mouse/keyboard. It is a pretty universal/common color for electronics. 7. It also includes a security lock on the right side, using a typical form factor that you’d find on a laptop or desktop security lock. In summary, this is a pricy dock for sure, but it is infinitely better than the three off-brand USB/c docks that I rotated through before getting this one. There are some hidden gems that set this dock apart from other docks.

Amazing dock! Well worth the price.

This is a great product. I have it plugged into a 14" 2023 MBP and it works great 100% of the time. It is plugged into two external 23" 2k monitors (via TB4 to DisplayPort cables), aux out cable to speakers, an external HDD, a midi cable to my pod go guitar pedal, AND it has no issue daisy chaining to a separate 7 port USB 3.0 hub (with its own power source) that is plugged into a couple other things. I have no issues waking/sleeping/disconnecting/connecting and everything is lightning fast. It is sleek, low profile, and the finish even matches my MBP space gray. It comes with its own TB4 cable AND power source which fast charges my MBP while maintaining all that other functionality. It's pricey, but well worth it. SIDE NOTE: about 50% of the time, I have to go into display settings (option F1 is a good shortcut) to rearrange my monitors. After extensive troubleshooting with Apple support, different cables, with and without the dock, different computers, pretty much every possible combination, I came to the conclusion that it's a known software issue when using identical external monitors on M1/M2 pro macs. So if this is happening to you, it's not the dock. In typical Apple fashion I've learned the workaround and accepted it in favor of a superior overall experience.

Excellent Dock
Have been a Satechi customer for a while and quality never disappoints. Excellent dock although I wish it had a USB-C port up front for easy access.

Works great for me
I was looking for a way to get more USB-C ports for my MacBook Pro. This dock works great, no issues.

Not sure why no other brand has figured this out, but Satechi has nailed it. I'm in and out of my office and meetings all day long and I need a dock that is literally plug and play. No time to screw around with monitor and camera connections every hour. Satechi works perfectly with my MacBook Pro