Kickstarter - MBA Dock

[paulrbeers]

A power brick costs around $60-80 to begin with, you're right that you can do the same stuff with about $80-100 in components, but it'll be several sorta gimpy devices (then again, this dock isn't winning in that respect)

Yeah, but this doesn't come with a power brick either does it? No. So you still have to spend 60-80 bucks on a power brick on top of the $150 for the unit....

So here's what it will cost you to buy the equivalent parts:

1. USB to Ethernet dongle - $7 (http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10311&cs_id=1031102&p_id=6150&seq=1&format=2)
2. USB hub - $14 for a powered USB hub (http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10307&cs_id=1030702&p_id=5328&seq=1&format=2)

Total cost = $21

I'll save the $129 and put it towards a nice night on the town with my wife.

Edited: I forgot that it is a powered USB hub (hence the power adapter that comes with the landingzone which by the way is NOT a magsafe power supply so I changed the hub to a powered one.)

 

[dyn]

What?! No need?! So you want all 3 of your USB ports and your ethernet to be limited to the speed of a single USB 2.0 port?

Well mr wiseguy in that case explain to all those MacBook Air 2010 owners how they can use Thunderbolt on their machine that has no Thunderbolt in it. Exactly, you can't so next time do some thinking before you do the typing!

This is a great dock for everybody with the 2010 model that does not have Thunderbolt. They now have a dock. For everybody with the 2011 model that does have Thunderbolt there is a much more expensive dock: the Thunderbolt Display. Another alternative would be the Belkin dock but that has not been released and might take several months before it does.

 

[MacModMachine]

Well mr wiseguy in that case explain to all those MacBook Air 2010 owners how they can use Thunderbolt on their machine that has no Thunderbolt in it. Exactly, you can't so next time do some thinking before you do the typing!

This is a great dock for everybody with the 2010 model that does not have Thunderbolt. They now have a dock. For everybody with the 2011 model that does have Thunderbolt there is a much more expensive dock: the Thunderbolt Display. Another alternative would be the Belkin dock but that has not been released and might take several months before it does.

so you are to cheap to upgrade and i should suffer?

nope , thunderbolt or no one will buy it.


simple , you do not have an option to not include what you want, as a creator they will simply fall behind when someone comes with a cheaper dock with thunderbolt.

good luck with your dock.

 

[ZipZap]

We aren't wining, we are pointing out that without Thunderbolt, it makes this nothing more than a glorified USB Hub. There isn't an integrated power supply, and the Ethernet and USB ports are just run off the USB connectors. I can accomplish all of this with a cheap 5 dollar hub and just plug that one hub into my Macbook Air. We get that the inventor doesn't have licensing to add Thunderbolt, but without it it doesn't do much good now does it? With Thunderbolt, you could have a full gigabit Ethernet, firewire, extra USB, high speed storage connections, etc... Otherwise again, this is just a fancy USB Hub.

Should we buy a product just because in the future other versions will do what we need/want it to do? That's asinine. It should do what it needs to do now. We shouldn't drop $150+ on a product that has a very limiited use. I'm sorry, not all inventions are a good one!

I'm starting to think Zip Zap is the inventor of this "docking station"....

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Again, thinking what thru Zipzap?

That the Ethernet will run at a max of 100mbps which is slower than the 300mbps you can get with wifi? And that if I utilize the Ethernet, it will reduce my USB bandwith for all other devices (i.e. external drives?). I don't think you understand the limitations to USB 2.0... The MBA already is limited to USB, we need a docking station that will utilize the Thunderbolt port so we can have more connections, not just shove even more stuff thru the limited bandwidth ports (i.e. USB).

I'll clarify for you:

This dock is not for 2011 MBA owners as it does not have thunderblunder and therefore cannot support the faster data connection types that all 2011 MBA owners now want.

I am not the inventor.

I agree the same thing can be done with dongles and a USB hub, but I dont want dongles and a USB hub.

I am sure that any regular TB dock that FINALLY hits the market will be way down the road and EXPENSIVE. Presently the only available dock for MBA 2011 is $1000 (and yes it doubles as a monitor but is still ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS). Subtract away the monitor cost of oh lets say $300 to $500 and you're still buying a pretty expensive dock.

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Yeah, but this doesn't come with a power brick either does it? No. So you still have to spend 60-80 bucks on a power brick on top of the $150 for the unit....

So here's what it will cost you to buy the equivalent parts:

1. USB to Ethernet dongle - $7 (http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10311&cs_id=1031102&p_id=6150&seq=1&format=2)
2. USB hub - $14 for a powered USB hub (http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10307&cs_id=1030702&p_id=5328&seq=1&format=2)

Total cost = $21

I'll save the $129 and put it towards a nice night on the town with my wife.

Edited: I forgot that it is a powered USB hub (hence the power adapter that comes with the landingzone which by the way is NOT a magsafe power supply so I changed the hub to a powered one.)

This is a perfect approach for YOU. I want to spend $139 for the dock.

 

[dyn]

so you are to cheap to upgrade and i should suffer?

Or you could stop being so enormously selfish. The world will be a much better place without people like you. You are not the only one on this planet, try respecting the others as well. Not everybody has money to buy a new Mac each year because that is exactly what you are requesting. It is also very unnecessary if the machine still does what it needs to do.

Btw, the only cheap person is you. You are too cheap to buy the thunderbolt display that is intended as the thunderbolt dock for the Air 2011. Why should everybody else with an older model suffer because you are too cheap to buy the dock for your Mac?

nope , thunderbolt or no one will buy it.

If you open your eyes and look at what other people are saying you'd notice that there is quite a lot of people wanting to buy the current one and not the thunderbolt one. This one works with their machines. There is a place for both though. Currently there are is a very good offering from Apple itself for a dock. It contains a display and a charger making it much more attractive as a dock. It also has a much cleaner look to it. For quite a lot of people this makes the thunderbolt display much more attractive than the dock from this 3rd party company with thunderbolt. They have to compete with Apple which is one of the most hardest things to do. Having a dock Apple hasn't it makes things a lot easier.

 

[LeandrodaFL]

The dock would be better if it were alluminum and acutally include USB 3.0, esta and firewire 800 with daisy chaining.

 

[ZipZap]

The dock would be better if it were alluminum and acutally include USB 3.0, esta and firewire 800 with daisy chaining.

Did you even read th thread?

You cannot get USB3 from a USB2 connection.

Now if you are speculating about what you would want for a 2011 MBA, then start another thread as its been pretty well established that this dock is for MBA 2010s or earlier.

 

[57004]

This is not correct. The MBA will operate quite fine with the lid closed. If you connect it to a monitor and close the lid it will stay on and not overheat or melt, just like every other apple laptop.

Don't forget to mention that it needs external power to work in clamshell mode. Without it it will go back to sleep when it's woken up with the lid closed. It's just the way Apple designed it.

 

[paulrbeers]

Now if you are speculating about what you would want for a 2011 MBA, then start another thread as its been pretty well established that this dock is for MBA 2010s ONLY.

Fixed that for you....