Just got mine (a day early too!), all hooked up and here's what I noticed after about half hour of use. Also, I ordered the version that shipped with the 2 metre cable.
- First thing I noticed is how incredibly small the Caldigit TS3 Plus is. The videos don't do it justice, even with the included large power brick, this thing is impressively small.
- Gigabit Ethernet performance is leaps and bounds better. Lower latency in all the speed tests & on my gigabit internet connection, the OWC couldn't sustain over 750 mbit ever since I had it from September. I've done about 10 speed tests with this one and I've been hovering sustained speeds between 875 - 920. (I mean we're splitting hairs when you hit those types of speeds anyway, but it's nice to know the processor in the Caldigit is working hard).
Upload wise, my connection is rated at 30 mbit. (1000/30 is such a swing btw). On the OWC, I always sat around 25.5 maybe 26 mbit. In all my speed tests, they've held at 30-32 mbit. Unless they changed network provisioning in my neighbourhood this week, There's a definite gain.
- You HAVE to use the included cable to get 85W. When I purchased my OWC dock, I bought a spare 2 metre cable (which was made for that dock which charges at 60W). Initially I tried that cable and only got 60W charging (according to System Report in Sierra), so I swapped it out.
- I use a Scarlet 2in2 out bus-powered USB interface for my audio- plugged into the Caldigit, and noticed some noise (not terrible, but noticeable). I'm wondering if that's to do with the wall outlet I've plugged the dock into, but I never experienced that before). I will experiment and maybe update this post.
- The front USB-C port doesn't connect to a very first-gen USB-C enclosure with a Samsung 500 GB EVO installed (to be fair, that enclosure always gave me connectivity issues). Plugging it into the back makes the enclosure come alive immediately, every time. BUT- I have an Elgato HD 60S HDMI capture device which works flawlessly via USB-C using the front & rear ports (even with the same USB-C cable, so the enclosure itself is the culprit). If you have flaky USB-C devices, know that the front 5gbit USB 3.1 Gen 1 doesn't seem very forgiving with those devices.
- Displayport on this dock works MUCH better than the Mini-Displayport on the OWC. Putting the display into safe mode (via a hot corner) and leaving the computer running (to encode video jobs) seems to work no problem at all. I will try full sleep, although I know this monitor is known for sleep issues in OSX so I'm not expecting much to be honest.
- Using a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 cable to network my 2017 to my older 2012 Macbook Pro to offload some video encoding work while I work seems to work fine through the Caldigit (via the daisy-chain Thunderbolt 3 port on the back).
- UPDATE: I have a Logitech C922 Webcam connected to it and when I power down the MacBook Pro, the ring indicator (that alerts you the camera is on) blinks non stop. Super annoying (the OWC didn't behave this way). Also, my Scarlet 2 in 2 out interface doesn't turn off either. I remember in a review I saw, this dock can supply power when the computers are powered off (which my old OWC did too)- but they never behaved like this. Strange for sure.
I didn't hate the OWC, I just didn't need Firewire and wanted the 2 extra USB-C's and wanted to gamble on full-sized DisplayPort (which I actually seemed to have won that battle). And the small form factor is actually very impressive.
I do video encoding and editing, & having only 60W (contrary to what the internet said) didn't affect me AT ALL with the 60W charging on the OWC. Battery was always held at 100% and even charged from 5% while working with no issues with the OWC.
All in all, I'm impressed so far!
