Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
It's reasonable that they would still have USB-A. Think about customers that will complain about not having USB-A, versus how many people want the ports to be USB-C only. I would bet there are far more people in the former category than the latter. And for data-only USB which is what the non-Thunderbolt ports on this are, as long as they're gen 2, the speeds are the same between C and A. So people will largely either not care it's not type-C only, or they will be bothered if it's type-C only and want it to be type-A.

It's different than Firewire because the FW protocol itself is outdated and largely gone from consumer devices, but USB is still the same protocol as always, and this one supports 10 Gbits on all USB ports so it's no downgrade to be type-A. It'd be nice if there were more Thunderbolt ports but on hub mode you're limited to 3 Thunderbolt hub ports (you connect up to 6 Thunderbolt devices through daisy chaining combined with the hub capability, but only up to 6 in total).
That makes sense. I probably just made my transition to USB-C too early.
 
The world seriously needs to start getting over USB type-A connectors.

It's been like 30 years. USB type-C is better in every way and not exactly brand new.

I agree expect that I'm a little worried about the ”wear and tear” aspects of a USB-C port compared to USB-A. Plugging my M1 work MacBook Pro in and out of two USB-C cables several times a day (one for a Satetchi USB-C hub that gives power and provides Ethernet and some USB-A ports and one for connecting a display via DisplayPort) I wonder how long it will take until the ports are worn out and will start to glitch. Hope never. :)
 
I can tell you I would be very cautious about buying another Caldigit Thunderbolt dock.
My TS3+ has given me the following issues:
* The dock will still feed power and some signal to all plugged in devices even if the host computer is powered off. This is a pretty big deal for spinning HDDs
* This thing picks up every bit of cellphone interference!
* Audio in is very static-y and weak
* It can get quite warm, not really a downside but I know some people can get miffed about that
And I on the contrary will only ever buy CalDigit docks in the future, I've never been as happy with a dock as I've been with my CalDigit TS3+. But I don't connect harddrives over USB, I use AirPods for audio, and I don't keep my dock in my lap so it doesn't matter if it gets a little hot. Actually I expect it to get a little hot, it's doing a lot.
 
No, it's a complete misunderstanding of what these products are for.
I completely understand what a dock accomplishes but I personally wouldn't pay $400 after tax for this product. I would rather spend $40 on three adaptors that have ports I actually want versus a catch all of 18. It's called personal preference. The people who like docks will buy it. Quit attributing ignorance when you can't read my mind.
 
Is there such a thing as TB switch? I have family Mac Mini hooked up to TS3+, but I also would like to use my MBP at the same desk connected to same peripherals. It gets old to swap cables to switch device connected to the dock.
i'm all for making things easier, but how would this work though? imagine you connect a keyboard, should it work on both devices at the same time?
 
i'm all for making things easier, but how would this work though? imagine you connect a keyboard, should it work on both devices at the same time?
A KVM switch, they have buttons that let you switch from one host to another. You use one computer at a time and it disconnects the other computer. Problem is the Thunderbolt docks don't have KVM capability.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mcrawley
Is it just me, or does this dock seem a little overkill?
It's just you.. These docks are fantastic solutions for folks with a lot of peripherals. Particularly useful when you switch computers frequently, from your work laptop to home laptop for example. If the dock meets the power demands of both devices, you only have one cable to mess around with. Expensive but very functional device.
 
I can tell you I would be very cautious about buying another Caldigit Thunderbolt dock.
My TS3+ has given me the following issues:
* The dock will still feed power and some signal to all plugged in devices even if the host computer is powered off. This is a pretty big deal for spinning HDDs
* This thing picks up every bit of cellphone interference!
* Audio in is very static-y and weak
* It can get quite warm, not really a downside but I know some people can get miffed about that
Yeah the "quite warm" aspect I have seen with many of these devices. Some of the blanking video problems we have seen only happen with 4K monitors and the devices are quite warm. We though maybe they are just being pushed to hard.
 
Is it just me, or does this dock seem a little overkill?
The one feature that sold me is two 6K monitors. This will hopefully allow me to have a 1 cable dock solution for an MX1 MAX and two XDRs (and a bunch of items I have currently with a TS3+).
 
It's just you.. These docks are fantastic solutions for folks with a lot of peripherals. Particularly useful when you switch computers frequently, from your work laptop to home laptop for example. If the dock meets the power demands of both devices, you only have one cable to mess around with. Expensive but very functional device.
I read the TS4 page, it comes with 230W power supply. I believe it have enough power for all the connected devices and M1 Max. That's the feature that sold me!
 
The most ports on any Thunderbolt dock ever, maybe… but still no HDMI. Can someone explain to me why the makers of these things seem to have such an aversion to it? It seems silly that I can pay so much money for one of these things but still have to use a dongle to connect any monitor I own to it. Is it a licensing issue?
HDMI is a better fit on USB-C docks. Hardly anybody spending $359 on a Thunderbolt dock is going to need to hook up a monitor over HDMI. Yes, high-bandwidth variants of HDMI exist, but any monitor at that level is going to have DisplayPort and/or Thunderbolt connectivity itself.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nugget and CarlJ
I wish for these premiumly priced products they improved the design. Not sure if just me but most thunderbolt socks are gastly looking things.

Sure on the cheaper ones I get crap design for something cheaper to make and functional.
 
Looks like a great upgrade overall, although it's a bit of a bummer that the optical audio port is gone. Too bad they didn't make the rear audio port a combo optical/analog minijack like the MacBook Pro and AirPort Express used to have.

That said, probably a niche use at this point, just like I mentioned above with HDMI use cases. For a while I did use my TS3's optical port to send audio to my receiver, but ended up moving the receiver to the other side of the room and using an old AirPort Express to send it over AirPlay. Docks are great when you've got a bunch of wires, but sometimes wireless is the way to go, too.
 
Find me a type-C equivalent to my $30 7 port (+3 power) USB 3 A hub that doesn't entail paying 10x as much for something that will provide no performance improvement whatsoever when used with the collection of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices that I still need to connect (some bought in the last year). Then I'll think about getting USB-C cables for all my USB A devices.

USB 4/Thunderbolt is great for high end devices, but for a vast swathe of current peripherals (like any mechanical hard drive, and most affordable SSDs - we're still a long way away from the day when even basic SSD is cheap enough for backups and archiving, let alone the sort of high-end NVME that can actually exceed USB 3.0 speeds) the only "benefit" of USB-C over A is the exciting opportunity to buy new cables or adapters for all your perfectly good USB-A devices.

You're confusing connector types and transfer protocols. USB type-A and USB type-C are connector types. The connector type doesn't say anything about the transfer protocol. A USB type-C doesn't have to be USB 4/Thunderbolt, it could also just do USB 2 or 3. What I'm talking about is the connector type, not the transfer protocol.
 
Hdmi is far more useful, I have never bought or even seen a display with DisplayPort.
I have a 2.5k with DP. It would fail to wake up, black out and lose connection.

I switched to the HDMI port hooked to a caldigit TB2 dock (grandfather of this product) instead and the monitor has been working perfectly for years now.

Which is why I am very happy my MBP M1P has an HDMI port. No need for the dock.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MacNerd01
The most ports on any Thunderbolt dock ever, maybe… but still no HDMI. Can someone explain to me why the makers of these things seem to have such an aversion to it? It seems silly that I can pay so much money for one of these things but still have to use a dongle to connect any monitor I own to it. Is it a licensing issue?
What monitors do you use that doesn't have DisplayPort? Not a critic, I am just curious
 
Those look like thunderbolt ports. If it’s TB4, I’d imagine they’re pass-through TB4 since that standard can handle that now. (Instead of USB-C like the article states)
 
And I on the contrary will only ever buy CalDigit docks in the future, I've never been as happy with a dock as I've been with my CalDigit TS3+. But I don't connect harddrives over USB, I use AirPods for audio, and I don't keep my dock in my lap so it doesn't matter if it gets a little hot. Actually I expect it to get a little hot, it's doing a lot.
My TB2 dock has been too “legacy” for the 2021 MBP and even for my Unibody under Catalina. It takes too long to wake so the MBP gets ahead of it. That means:
1. macOS tells me I disconnected any hard drives connected to it on wake
2. ethernet doesn’t stay live during sleep so there is no wake on network access and open websites time out on wake (on the unibody I switched to the internal EN but the 2021 MBP doesn’t have that option).
3. Displays connected to it don’t wake right away, so macOS thinks there are none and reconfigures the MBP desktop to a single display, then reconfigures again when it detects them. This screws up some software that has pallets open. Luckily this was only an occasional issue.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mcrawley
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.