CES 2012: Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock to Launch in September at $299

[kas23]

Making babies is easy.... any idiot can do that! ;-)

As for the device itself.... I'll probably get one at work. I don't want a full on monitor but I do need firewire, gigabit, USB and sound... and it would be handy to have it all in one connection.

Yeah - it's a bit steep.... but I already paid $3000 for the laptop.... what's another $300??

You paid $3000 for a laptop? That is 1 tricked-out 17 inch MBP that likely represent 1% of all Apple laptops sold. I bought the most tricked-out MBA for half of that and this hub costs 20% of the worth of my laptop. And there are tons of people who would say I overspent on a laptop. Plus, I would be pissed if I bought a laptop that didn't already have all these types of ports already built in. Wait, they do.

$300 for a hub is ridiculous. I may buy it if it comes with a drive inside.

Welcome to Apple's "simple" world.

But it still has a "clean design".

 

[Jiten]

I'll pick it up next year, once they put it on a fire sale because no one is buying it.

 

[surjavarman]

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB842G/A?fnode=MjUyODA4MTg&s=topSellers

This is the reason why thunderbolt is not taking off. It's too expensive and unnecessary for 99% of users out there.

Professionals already have fibre channel cards, they've used those for years. They won't switch that fast because this equipment is expensive.

Also, thunderbolt will take off when your average windows PC comes quipped with the technology - something that will still take a few years. For the next 5 years, I think USB 3 will dominate.

Thunderbolt will become the new firewire - i.e. overpriced accessories for the mac community.

I completely agree. I think TB will never take off and it will be a flop.

 

[andiwm2003]

They shouldn't bother, i can't think of a single person who would ever buy one of these for $50 let alone $300.

the only people that I can imagine is employees of a company on their company account. that happens a lot. the user is not a computer expert at all and just needs a dock. at the same time $300 is not much for your company card so he/she just orders it without realizing or caring that it's way too expensive.

 

[AidenShaw]

People have babies quicker!

And you're including the courtship in your timeline!

Seriously - no USB 3.0 and no eSATA?

And, it would add insult to injury if it doesn't include the $50 cable.

T-Bolt looks more and more like a

 

[Daishan]

I agree I wish it came with USB3/ESATA ports and cost much less.

Paying $300 to add a few USB ports and a GigE port is crazy.

Maybe someone at Belkin should analyze how many more they would sell at $249 or $199 instead of $299...

 

[Erendiox]

You guys seem to be missing the primary market for this device, and that's Macbook Air users that need more than USB as an interface. That's where the value is. This item kills all of the air's interface woes at once. There's no other item on the market that will do that.

It's no surprise that Macbook Pro users would likely not buy this - though to some users, having another set of firewire and USB ports with their own dedicated bus is useful. Not for everybody, but certainly an option that people would consider.

 

[rumplestiltskin]

No USB3? No eSATA?

I'm telling you: These morons just don't understand how to design a TBolt hub. Let's have four Cardbus54 slots and then -I- can decide what I want to connect.

 

[philipma1957]

No USB3? No eSATA?

I'm telling you: These morons just don't understand how to design a TBolt hub. Let's have four Cardbus54 slots and then -I- can decide what I want to connect.

would be a nice piece of gear. but the answer is simple they don't want t-bolt to succeed . why? iCloud would suffer.

How about your own iCloud with an iMac hooked up to 24tb of your info via t-bolt

 

[friedmud]

You paid $3000 for a laptop? That is 1 tricked-out 17 inch MBP that likely represent 1% of all Apple laptops sold. I bought the most tricked-out MBA for half of that and this hub costs 20% of the worth of my laptop. And there are tons of people who would say I overspent on a laptop. Plus, I would be pissed if I bought a laptop that didn't already have all these types of ports already built in. Wait, they do.

$300 for a hub is ridiculous. I may buy it if it comes with a drive inside.

But it still has a "clean design".

Actually closer to $4000... totally maxed 15" with 512MB SSD.

I write hardcore, parallel scientific software for a living. Any speed gains translate into tons of cash saved for my employer....

The 1% is what Belkin is targeting with the initial run of these hubs. Don't underestimate the size of that 1% or how much money they are willing to spend ;-)

 

[wikus]

View attachment 319300
Now it's worth $300.

LMAO!

guaranteed that it would sell for $300 if it had the apple badge of RDF on it.

 

[dr Dunkel]

Could this fool the dumbed down target display mode?

 

[Zumino]

Agree with pretty much everyone else here I think.

I was really looking forward to this, for $50-$100.

For $300, I'd rather save my pennies and replace my 23ACD with a 27" ACD/TB.

I can sell my ACD for ~$250 on Ebay, that plus the $300 of this thing puts me over 1/2 way to a 27" ACD.


Yeah, I'll pass.

Drop the price by 66% and we'll talk.

 

[lhotka]

Expensive, yes. USB 3? Sheesh. Do you even know why you want USB 3?

Sure, because it's the fastest interface available on relatively inexpensive hard drives today.

 

[Frobozz]

Actually closer to $4000... totally maxed 15" with 512MB SSD.

I write hardcore, parallel scientific software for a living. Any speed gains translate into tons of cash saved for my employer....

The 1% is what Belkin is targeting with the initial run of these hubs. Don't underestimate the size of that 1% or how much money they are willing to spend ;-)

Agreed! Although I do agree with many other posters that an eSata or USB 3 port would be nice additions (the former more than the latter.) In my case, I have a nearly maxxed out 15" MBP and the investment in a single plug "dock" is VERY appealing. The price-- not so much. But it's not prohibitive.

 

[Erendiox]

would be a nice piece of gear. but the answer is simple they don't want t-bolt to succeed . why? iCloud would suffer.

How about your own iCloud with an iMac hooked up to 24tb of your info via t-bolt

I hope you weren't expecting anyone to take this comment seriously.

iCloud = free
24tb Thunderbolt Raid Array = not free

not to mention the configuration involved.

 

[smoledman]

Wow, $300.

This makes the Apple Thunderbolt display even more justifiable, considering a dell of similar size, resolution and quality is only around $100 cheaper.

Apple Thunderbolt Display -> $700 for IPS panel, $300 for thunderbolt dock

But the main reason I am hesitant on the Apple Thunderbolt display is because its only input option is the TB cable. My current Acer model can have my MBA, PC Desktop and one other thing over HDMI plugged in at the same time, so it is kind of hard to accept the downgrade in connectivity with the jump in price.

They could have just added one mini-display port to the back and had autos-witching and a touch sensitive apple logo to switch inputs manually.

Anyways, this would be a bit more tempting if it were also portable (To be used on the road with a MBA for ethernet+extra USB), but they decided to make it look nice on your desk instead. So essentially for me, $300 to plug in one less cable at my desk. No thanks.

That's really the point. Apple spends all the R&D so you can spend an extra $300 to clean up your desk. For many people having a clean desk is a spiritual affair.

 

[longtimelurker]

This is more appealing to Air users than MacBook Pro

That ... plus tax and shipping put this way out of line even for $2+k MacBook Pro owners. Bundle it with a 2T ext hard drive with Time Machine compat for $200 and maybe...

 

[fpnc]

As many have already said, it's DOA without USB3. Maybe Belkin will take this feedback and redesign the product.

With USB3 and decent throughput/performance it would be an nice product for the MacBook Airs but the street price will have to be under $200 U.S.

 

[Bwa]

I don't have a problem with the $299 price.

I do wish it would ship before September though.

 

[zorinlynx]

$300? What planet do they live on?

At this rate Thunderbolt is going to be another niche technology, much like Firewire ended up becoming. You can't expect a new standard to catch on if it's priced out of the market!

 

[old-wiz]

I wonder how much of the price is due to Apple's fee to use the patents???

 

[AidenShaw]

I wonder how much of the price is due to Apple's fee to use the patents???

I wonder how much of the delay is due to the technology just not being ready for prime time.

In a handful of weeks it will be a year since Apple introduced Apple books with T-Bolt.

This article is about an expensive, limited (no USB 3.0, no eSATA) dock that won't be available for another nine months.

Train wreck in progress.... (that's what special about train wrecks - you can see one happening long before the actual impact - but there's nothing you can do to avoid the impact)

 

[twoodcc]

too much money for me. if i'm going to spend that much, might as well go ahead and get the display

 

[jdechko]

I wonder how much of the price is due to Apple's fee to use the patents???

Somewhere in the neighborhood of $0. Intel, not Apple owns the patents for Thunderbolt. Also, there is no licensing fee and it's royalty free, so anyone can build official Thunderbolt peripherals.

The TB controllers are probably expensive, which may be why this device is so much. It's easy to hide the cost of a $75-100 (guessing) controller in a $1000 display or a $600 SSD RAID. The Belkin hub and the sonnet EC/34 adapter are both cheap(er) peripherals, so the cost increase is probably directly related to this. The controller cost may be the reason for the shipping delay (cheaper controllers in 3-4 months = cheaper device shipping in september).

As of right now, TB looks like it may be a train wreck, but I don't think that's its fate. The market for these products is very small right now, and a small market means expensive peripherals. But the market will grow for one reason: Ultrabooks. They are seemingly the perfect market for Thunderbolt, and a lot more manufacturers are releasing ultrabooks with thunderbolt ports (Acer and Lenovo have already demoed ultrabooks with thunderbolt - not that they'll be better than the Air...)

Also, the new Cactus Ridge Thunderbolt chips are going to be much smaller which means that they're likely headed for the new iPad/iPhone/iPod touch.

I'm not saying that TB will supplant USB 3.0 any time soon, but I think 2012 will be a much better year for TB than 2011 was.