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CalDigit's New Thunderbolt 4 Dock for MacBook Pro Features 18 Ports
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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.
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.
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.
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?
Not to me. I have a lot of peripherals and will easily use them up. I love my CalDigit Plus 3. This new one looks like a really good investment to go with my new M1 Pro Max mini.
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.
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.
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+).
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
FireWire is old and obsolete, no matter what anyone here wants to argue and miniDP was only used by Apple or on an actual GPU card to cram as many ports in limited space.