MBA M2 Dock / Hub Advice?

[PhoenixDown]

It seems like there's a bazillion options out there and I am curious what everyone here is using.

My requirements I think are simple:

• 2.5G or higher ethernet port
• A few USB-C ports that can power my laptop and a few peripherals.
• 1 lonely USB-A but I could even skip that with a USB-A to USB-C connector for $5
• HDMI 2.x for my current monitor.
• Bonus if I can swap out or between my MBA M2 and a windows work laptop (cannot use shell, etc).
• Thunderbolt 5 would be nice for future proofing a bit

Future requirements:

• I imagine I'll upgrade from my lame-o monitor to a 5k or 6k at some point.
• Eventually I'll probably upgrade my MBA M2, nothing crazy.
• Do not need enhanced storage; if I do I'll probably with a NAS.

What am I missing here?

 

[Bigwaff]

Your budget. How much you want to spend? T5 docks are expensive.

 

[drrich2]

Would an internal NVMe SSD (watch the data transfer rates; some are 'Thunderbolt speed' and some might not be, even if the dock itself is Thunderbolt) be important to you? The presence or absence of that could narrow Thunderbolt 5 choices considerably.

How important is portability? If this is mainly a single location desktop station connection for your notebook, a dock is probably the way to go. But if you want to take it with you, then portability, a built-in or small external power supply, these things get more important.

I echo @Bigwaff 's question, what's the budget?

And are you looking to spend big now for long haul use, or spend half that and upgrade to better sooner? If so, a used dock and/or a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 dock might be fine. My CalDigit TS3+ doesn't sound impressive by modern standards, but it was $90 used off Facebook Marketplace with public meetup, rather than $400 - $500 or so for a TB5 dock.

 

[PhoenixDown]

the dock will be a fixed asset. I guess I’ll go for a less expensive dock to start and upgrade later if needed. For $500 I think I’d rather put that towards a monitor or a future Mac Studio