Henge "dock" Yay or Nay?

[docLocke]

henge dock nay--insults Jobs' legacy

Steve Jobs turned Apple around in 1997 by helping the company rediscover superb function, elegant design, quality materials and construction.
Henge docks illustrate the opposite. Cheap plastic housing bends and gives--anything but accurate. Metal connectors thermo-welded into plastic are either mis-aligned to begin with or bend and warp on their own. Metal-housed screws turn into plastic plug housing--which eventually distorts permanently.
Other users note that the MacBook Pro dissipates heat by airflow through the keyboard--tough to do with the cover closed. Henge tested the closed unit by what amounts to a long idle. But crank it up with lots of video or other intense processor demand, and it gets hot.
Suggestion: cut the dock down to its minimum, leave the unit open (see pic).
Couple of benefits: it's one docking plug, faster than separate ones; and without the deep well, you can seat the plugs carefully in the MBP, reduce the chance of damaging the female plugs.
But that plastic slop up against the sleek, machined aluminum body says it clearly:
MBP still needs a good docking station. The kind Steve might have designed.

 

[soulreaver99]

I just got this recently and highly recommend it as a docking solution for the MacBook Pros. Wrote a review too!

http://www.thegeeksoffice.com/?p=193

 

[Cassius2412]

Don't risk your MBP on this!

Purchased one of these things several months ago. Over time the unit began to scratch my case and damage the ports. I'm not sure what level of reliability testing was invested in but it seems like HDocks was more interested in making the money instead of designing a reliable product. I tried to see if they would stand behind their product and they sent me a pdf of what their customers are doing to fix their design. I spent an hour trying to shim, reposition, change connectors and everything else recommended by HDock to no avail. Mind you, I bought this unit several months ago but the failures are latent design defects that occur after the 90 day warranty period. I don't think HDock took into consideration the affects of heat transfer over time or the number of cycles you can insert and eject before the thing fails. I think the idea was a wonderful start at an attempt to market a docking station. However, I spent a great deal of money on my MacBook Pro FOR A REASON as with everyone that equates productivity with reliability.

If you are on the fence on this thing, don't waste your money on this rev of a HDock, wait until enough folks begin to experience the latent design defects and HDock decides to reinvest into improving their design. I figure by then they'll either rev their product, sell the business or Apple will invest in a "Qualified" solution. Reference to docLocke too

I think the rule of thumb is: If Apple doesn't sell it in their stores it doesn't meet expectations!

The concept rocks but the execution sucks. No doubt a product like this is a hard one to pull off successfully. The problem is that it shouldn't be oversold and then totally under-deliver. I've been so wanting to get this dock to work with my 17" MacBook Pro but unfortunately it's been to no avail. No matter how hard I've tried it's impossible to get the alignment to work and it's resulted in some damage to the ports over time. If Henge can get this re-engineered properly they'd have a product every Mac owner could benefit from. But until then, buyer beware.

 

[spaceballl]

Just a +1 on the unhappy reviews. I'm the same way. It worked well for a while, but then it started to not fit perfectly, and i'd have to jam it in harder. I re-checked the organization of the ports and stuff, and it's really hard to troubleshoot. The more I think about it, the more I'm confused by the design. I understand that the Magsafe connector is a proprietary connector. Thus, we need to use an adaptor. However, mini-displayport and USB are commonplace. We should just plug the USB / mini-dp plugs into a "hub" and there should be a pre-molded piece of plastic that slides perfect in. Anyhow, bummer that the product ended up sucking. I definitely would not recommend this version (the most recent one). Hopefully they update their design, and in the future, it's much better.

 

[defsquad]

Just a +1 on the unhappy reviews. I'm the same way. It worked well for a while, but then it started to not fit perfectly, and i'd have to jam it in harder. I re-checked the organization of the ports and stuff, and it's really hard to troubleshoot. The more I think about it, the more I'm confused by the design. I understand that the Magsafe connector is a proprietary connector. Thus, we need to use an adaptor. However, mini-displayport and USB are commonplace. We should just plug the USB / mini-dp plugs into a "hub" and there should be a pre-molded piece of plastic that slides perfect in. Anyhow, bummer that the product ended up sucking. I definitely would not recommend this version (the most recent one). Hopefully they update their design, and in the future, it's much better.

what a disappointment. your original review was so positive. it seems like their tooling and tolerances for production are definitely not consistent. i doubt they QA every single one that comes off the line. besides it seems like they work fine to start with, but goes down hill with enough docking/undocking. again, too bad. I wish bookendz made a vertical version.

 

[canhaz]

So has anyone got a skin or cover on their MBP to work with the hengedock?

 

[Maguffin]

give up

Just upgraded to LION and now find my Henge is even more finicky than ever. I have always been disappointed with its performance, its incredibly fiddly, requiring multiple docking to get it to light up every day but now with the Lion incompatibility I will go back to multi plugging. Do not buy one of these things. Already overpriced for plastic, chuck in the poor reliability and it is just a gyp.