Anker's Latest USB-C Docking Station Brings Triple-Display Support to M1 Macs

[MrCourtney]

Which OWC dock are you thinking about? I see this one, which I agree is more powerful for only $50 more, but it's still limited to two displays. And, per the tiny print only on Intel Macs.

Try this:

OWC USB-C Dual HDMI 4K Display Adapter with DisplayLink

Easily add two HDMI displays up to 4K to any Apple M1, M2, M3, M4 Mac or computer with a USB-C or Thunderbolt port. Includes a 1-year OWC warranty.

eshop.macsales.com

 

[TinyMito]

Are there any dock supports 4K 144hz?

 

[EightBitJoe]

4K@30HZ

Gross

 

[VictorTango777]

This is NOT MST. This dock has a Display Link adapter built in. This is how it provides 3 monitor support for M1 Macs. So everyone complaining that this just doesn't drive high enough resolution / refresh rates is ... well kind of right. The actual limitation is the M1. Display Link is the only way the base M1 is going to support multiple monitors. 2K monitors will be the max resolution @60Hz. For programmers and office workers this is just fine. If you are in the business of multi-media content creation then you need a Mac with an M1 Pro / Max / Ultra.

M1 is not the only limitation. Daisy chained MST monitors and multiport MST hubs don’t work in MacOS. But the same hardware works fine when an Intel Mac is booted into Windows. This issue has persisted for several years. Can someone explain Apple’s resistance to properly supporting DisplayPort MST in MacOS? Is it some petty attempt to “convince” people to buy Thunderbolt monitors?

 

[Westside guy]

30hz is brutal. why they are even offering this as an option is brutal.

The fundamental limitation is on Apple's part here. Anker is just offering a ghetto DisplayLink work-around.

On a side note: I'm wondering if the real reason Apple decided to put an M1 in a display, and is doing stuff like sidecar, is because they're having trouble getting their chips to effectively support multiple monitors.

 

[fatsarmstrong]

This looks like it would be perfect for me. I am using my M1 MBP for productivity, no gaming, and I have 1440p monitors at home. I have been looking for a somewhat affordable way to get dual external monitor support for my M1, seems like this would be the ticket. I haven't seen anything else in the price range that gives me the external monitor support I would need.

 

[4jasontv]

On a pre-covid triple monitor setup, I had one monitor dedicated to e-mails and billing entries on my desk. That monitor was set as the 30Hz monitor through the dock and the refresh rate was tolerable for that very limited use.

I wouldn't use it for anything else (not even Excel or other more "static" use) for very long.

Try this:

OWC USB-C Dual HDMI 4K Display Adapter with DisplayLink

Easily add two HDMI displays up to 4K to any Apple M1, M2, M3, M4 Mac or computer with a USB-C or Thunderbolt port. Includes a 1-year OWC warranty.

eshop.macsales.com

Interesting. Thank you. I wonder why it can’t do single 120 hz 4K. Does it use two ports on the Mac to run two monitors?

 

[Blkant]

This thing seems kinda ******.

60hz is the bare minimum for monitors and the PC world is rapidly moving to 120+hz for everything. I think the OWC thunderbolt hubs/docks are supporting multiple 4K displays at 60hz so I don't know why they didn't do that here.

I would rather not use a monitor than use one at 30hz.

What am I missing?

They do. I own the smaller, three display, one foreword usb 3.1 port model. It works just fine at 4k 60hz and is considerably cheaper.

 

[AppleTO]

30hz is brutal. why they are even offering this as an option is brutal.

I feel like these kinds of hubs are to trick people who doesn't know any better, which is unfortunate. No one would want to run at less than 60hz in any sort of circumstance.

 

[Stromos]

I am working on a 4k display (Intel and M1 MacBook Pros) for years and never had any "scaling issues". What do you mean? Take good cables, use DisplayPort if possible and understand what HiDPI is.
Anything under 4K on 27" is blurred and annoying, even if you work with office or as an developer.

RDP from a Mac to any Windows machine then RDP from the Windows machine to another machine and you have random text you need a microscope to read. Run any opensource application that doesn't handle scaling properly and get broken UI elements. Yes things have moved in the right direction but you don't always pick what systems/software you have to work with/on.

Once again you are not running 4K on a 27 inch screen native unless you have a magnifying glass on your monitor and if you're scaling up then you are not actually using 4K.

 

[laughtalk]

M1 is not the only limitation. Daisy chained MST monitors and multiport MST hubs don’t work in MacOS. But the same hardware works fine when an Intel Mac is booted into Windows. This issue has persisted for several years. Can someone explain Apple’s resistance to properly supporting DisplayPort MST in MacOS? Is it some petty attempt to “convince” people to buy Thunderbolt monitors?

One can only guess why Apple doesn't support MST. But I am pretty sure that they would say that Thunderbolt is the official technology that they do to support dual monitors.

 

[JosephAW]

Nine amp power brick? Must run hot.

 

[manofthematch]

Once again you are not running 4K on a 27 inch screen native unless you have a magnifying glass on your monitor and if you're scaling up then you are not actually using 4K.

You don't know HiDPI mode? I use 4K to make the picture sharp while macOS scales the UI up. So I use the best of both worlds -- looks like 2560x1440 but is sharp as 4K.

 

[Thebrochure]

When a ten-year-old MacBook has more ports than a brand new one, you gotta wonder.

 

[thawk9455]

When a ten-year-old MacBook has more ports than a brand new one, you gotta wonder.

Going by that metric, the PowerBook 145B we had in 1994 should really make you wonder about the ten-year old MacBook too...

 

[Thebrochure]

Going by that metric, the PowerBook 145B we had in 1994 should really make you wonder about the ten-year old MacBook too...

If the ports still had practical use in 2014, it would make me think. Because it's illogical. Most of the ports on the 2013 MacBook Pro are still relevant and used today. HDMI, being just one of them. So it's not really progress to remove them. It's just form-over-factor... which is ridiculous when you're selling a laptop in 2022.

 

[DJJAZZYJET]

Who wants 4K 30hz output and USB 2.0 ports from a dock that costs this much?

 

[asdfjkl;]

M1 is not the only limitation. Daisy chained MST monitors and multiport MST hubs don’t work in MacOS. But the same hardware works fine when an Intel Mac is booted into Windows. This issue has persisted for several years. Can someone explain Apple’s resistance to properly supporting DisplayPort MST in MacOS? Is it some petty attempt to “convince” people to buy Thunderbolt monitors?

I've had this same beef with MacOS not supporting MST. And yes, it's a software limitation not hardware since it MST works fine on Intel Mac under bootcamp. It's really shameful that Apple hasn't added MST support to MacOS.

 

[joevt]

Anker should have put a 10 Gbps USB hub in there.

While macOS doesn't support MST for multiple displays (this Anker USB-C dock uses DisplayLink), if Anker included an MST hub, then macOS could use its capabilities to convert 2 lanes of HBR3 (not four lanes because the other two lanes are used for USB 3.x in a USB-C dock) to 4 lanes of HBR2 to allow 4K60 (8bpc CVT-RB; not HDMI timing) from the non-DisplayLink port. And with DSC, the 2 lanes of HBR3 could do 5K60 or 4K110! But Anker crippled the DisplayPort option by putting an HDMI converter in the way, so you can't connect an external MST hub to do the link width/rate conversion and DSC decompression.

It's really shameful that Apple hasn't added MST support to MacOS.

It's one thing to not support MST ever, but supporting a feature of MST and then removing that feature later is on another level.

I'm not 100% sure macOS properly supports DisplayPort link width/rate conversion and DSC decompression using an MST hub for M1 Macs. The CalDigit SOHO is a USB-C dock that includes an MST hub that supports DSC (and it contains a 10 Gbps USB hub). I can get 4K110 8bpc from a display connected to the CalDigit SOHO (which is connected to a Radeon Pro W5700), but only in Catalina; Apple in their infinite wisdom decided to un-support DSC decompression from MST in Monterey so I can only get 4K60 8bpc in Monterey ..............................

Another issue: macOS on Intel Macs supports MST for old 4K displays that used separate MST streams for each 1920x2160 half of the display. I think this is broken on M1 Macs.

 

[iBreatheApple]

Surprised so many devices today still have more USB-A ports than USB-C.

 

[manofthematch]

The fundamental limitation is on Apple's part here. Anker is just offering a ghetto DisplayLink work-around.

Yes and no. There are DisplayLink adapters which support 4K/60Hz.

The native reduction on one external monitor comes from Apple. But DisplayLink can do more than this adapter, look:

USB-C Universal Quad 4K Docking Station w/ Power Delivery | Targus

The Universal USB-C Quad 4K (QV4K) Docking Station (DOCK570USZ) connects and powers your enterprise laptops using HDMI and DisplayPort for up to four monitors.

ca.targus.com

Universal USB-C Docking Station with 65W Power | Targus US

An efficient, productive workspace is one cable away. Order the USB-C DV4K docking station with 65W Power to increase your device's power and peripherals!

us.targus.com

 

[tadasZ]

they should stop even writing 4k/30hz as it's not a feature it's a disability, not usable, maybe for picture frames, but not anything work/play related stuff.

 

[playtech1]

If this can get an M1 to output to three 1080p screens @60hz then it does have some utility - that resolution is absolutely fine for a lot of business applications.

Where I think this falls short for me is that I can't see that it allows 2 x 1440p @ 60hz. The '2k' on the Anker website refer to a 2048×1152 resolution rather than the '2.5k' 2560 x 1440.

Really though this is not Anker's fault, but Apple's for hobbling M1 with such meagre video output options. It looks like the best option for base M1 is still a single large external display - there are a bunch of ultrawide monitors that offer something approaching a dual-monitor experience.

 

[manofthematch]

Really though this is not Anker's fault, but Apple's for hobbling M1 with such meagre video output options.

Again. This thing uses DisplayLink technology, which can handle much more than this dock provides. Anker obviously uses old/cheap DisplayLink chips.

Yes, Apple did not enable the first M1 for more than one display. Such a dock can be a very good solution for this problem as it extends the graphics capabilities. But this Anker dock isn't.

Read my posting above.

 

[kwikdeth]

(edit) nevermind, I didnt see the later posts until now saying this is a DisplayLink chipset and not a true MST solution.(/edit)

I'd be interested to know how exactly they achieved this, as it was my understanding that Apple only supported MST for multiple individual displays over Thunderbolt connections, which effectively limited it to Apple's own thunderbolt monitors. Using MST in any other configuration would only support display mirroring. I've wanted to use DisplayPort MST splitters for years to cut down on cable clutter for multiple displays and never could do it because of Apple's artificial Thunderbolt limitation.