Review: OWC's Thunderbolt 3 Dock Gives Your MacBook Pro 13 More Ports to Work With

[rhodesy22]

Shouldn't this thing cost $800? That's what Apple would charge. $299 is still ridiculous when you can buy an entire PC for that, but you have to expect to pay through the nose with the Mac. PC Hub? $25. Mac hub. $299. Yeah, ti's Thunderbolt 3. But those ports all used to come with a Mac years ago. PCs still do come with them. So pay $2400 for a 15" Macbook Pro with a lousy 250GB of storage ($3000 for 1TB) and then another $299 to get all those ports the $2000 model used to come with. And the Mac fanatics will EAT IT UP because they enjoy paying through the nose.

Given how many thunderbolt 3 windows laptops there are now (which also lack ports) I don't see your reasoning.

 

[ugahairydawgs]

Because releasing a laptop with ports is just too mainstream

My 2013 laptop had plenty of ports. I still used a dock. For me I use enough external peripherals that the convenience of only plugging in one cable warrants the admittedly high cost of the dock (I have two of the OWC TB2 docks).

 

[theluggage]

$299 is still ridiculous when you can buy an entire PC for that, but you have to expect to pay through the nose with the Mac. PC Hub? $25. Mac hub. $299.

The only "PC hub" you'll get for $25 is a USB hub that shares one of your computer's USB ports between multiple USB sockets. One generic chip, a handful of capacitors and some wiring. If that's what you want then, good news, because the vast majority of those will work fine with a Mac anyway.

A thunderbolt dock has a Thunderbolt peripheral controller chip (plus all the supporting gubbins for charging, Thunderbolt/USB-C passthrough and displayport) driving an internal PCIe bus driving full-blown controllers for USB, sound, Ethernet etc. (all of which needs drivers to be tested, if not writing). It's pretty complex, custom circuitry - and the potential market (and hence sales volume) is fairly limited. Volume, and economy of scale, is critical in the cost of electronics.

The reason that you can buy a complete PC for the same price is that a PC can be easily thrown together from whatever generic, mass-produced parts you can find in a bankruptcy sale this week, safe in the knowledge that they'll all come with Windows drivers.

That said, before we all start bleating and proffering our credit cards, these docks should be a luxury item for people who can afford $300 to avoid the ignominy of having to plug in more than one cable when they sit their laptop on the desk. However, Apple's courageous genius in stripping all the useful ports (including power) from their supposedly "pro" computers has made them something of a necessity: take a non-TB MBP, plug in the charger, plug in an external display and, sorry, that's you're lot! C.f. the Macbook Air (forget the old 'pros with even more ports), to which you could connect the charger, an external display, a USB keyboard or mouse, a USB backup drive and a SD card before having to reach for hubs/docks.

 

[Freyqq]

Plugging in a hard drive and getting 100 mb/s speeds is probably maxing out the hard drive's speeds...nothing to do with the dock. Either way, to make the claim that it's slower on the dock would require a comparison test with plugging it in directly. Faster interface doesn't matter if the drive tops out at 100 mb/s.

 

[chucker23n1]

Plugging in a hard drive and getting 100 mb/s speeds is probably maxing out the hard drive's speeds...nothing to do with the dock. Either way, to make the claim that it's slower on the dock would require a comparison test with plugging it in directly. Faster interface doesn't matter if the drive tops out at 100 mb/s.

Yes, you're correct, and I think MacRumors either phrased that poorly or meddled two distinct issues.

However, even in gross bandwidth, it only does USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gb/s), not Gen 2 (10 Gb/s). That's pretty disappointing for a $299 dock in 2017. As for whether the controller actually achieves anything close to 5 Gb/s anyway (625 MB/s), that's another matter.

 

[Brookzy]

So the 0.5m cable thing is not just a matter of (in)convenience. That is the maximum length a wired Thunderbolt connection can be for the maximum speeds. Anything longer and the max speed degrades pretty quickly.

Edit: I should point out that by wired I mean, passive metal wires vs. active or optical. Optical connections, or active wired connections can supposedly be longer but where are those cables? Either non-existent or prohibitively expensive.

Huh? Long cables have been shipping for months from Belkin, CalDigit, OWC, and others, and perform identically to the short ones except for USB 3 backwards-compatibility (which is irrelevant in the context of a Thunderbolt 3 dock).

 

[satchmo]

Perhaps in the future, there could be a smaller and less expensive version? Perhaps $150.
Two USB on the back is enough and remove firewire.

 

[chucker23n1]

So the 0.5m cable thing is not just a matter of (in)convenience. That is the maximum length a wired Thunderbolt connection can be for the maximum speeds. Anything longer and the max speed degrades pretty quickly.

Edit: I should point out that by wired I mean, passive metal wires vs. active or optical. Optical connections, or active wired connections can supposedly be longer but where are those cables? Either non-existent or prohibitively expensive.

Both passive and active Thunderbolt 3 copper cables can go up to 2m, according to Intel.
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Perhaps in the future, there could be a smaller and less expensive version? Perhaps $150.
Two USB on the back is enough and remove firewire.

Dropping those ports isn't going to halve the price, but there are already cheaper competitors out there.

 

[Brookzy]

Both passive and active Thunderbolt 3 copper cables can go up to 2m, according to Intel.

Passive Thunderbolt 3 cables longer than 0.5 metres are limited to 20 Gbps, however.

 

[chucker23n1]

Passive Thunderbolt 3 cables longer than 0.5 metres are limited to 20 Gbps, however.

I apologize; I misread the slide.

 

[Guy Clark]

Thank God for OWC for coming to the rescue of those with useless modern Macs

 

[Dr Charter]

I really like my Thunderbolt 2 dock from them. I've been using that with the TB3 adapter. I'm not in a hurry to upgrade but having one cable is tempting.

 

[ignatius345]

Because releasing a laptop with ports is just too mainstream

Or, god forbid, having an up-to-date desktop machine. Once you're at the point where you need that much I/O, why work with a laptop with miniaturized components optimized for power consumption and portability?

 

[Schizoid]

Perhaps in the future, there could be a smaller and less expensive version? Perhaps $150.
Two USB on the back is enough and remove firewire.

Perhaps in the future a computer company will be courageous enough to either include the ports in a laptop or supply hubs with them

 

[commander.data]

Is the Thunderbolt 3 dock compatible with Apple's Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter for use with a Thunderbolt 2 Mac? That way when I eventually upgrade to a Thunderbolt 3 Mac I don't need to get a new dock to fully benefit from Thunderbolt 3 (vs getting and reusing a Thunderbolt 2 dock now).

 

[MH01]

I have a number of TB hubs and the razer core. Gets very expansive though does add versatility

My favourite setup is the intel skull canyon and razer core.

 

[fourthtunz]

Some people enjoy buying useless, expensive car parts for no good reason... some of us enjoy buying expensive computer gear. Such is life. Is there really a use in criticizing people about it?

The thing they are missing is that Mac products are better.
My Girlfriend brings over her new Lenovo Laptop..malware, adware, crappy track pad..Yuck!
The 2012 Macbook pro that I just bought was less money,is a better experience and
as fast or faster than her piece of crap.
Sure a new Lenovo is cheaper than a new MacBook but you get what you pay for
and I don't care what other people buy and I don't go to pc websites to harass them

 

[prowlmedia]

Thank God for OWC for coming to the rescue of those with useless modern Macs

Depends if you make money with them... I do... lots and lots. A bad workman and all that!

 

[fourthtunz]

Yes, you're correct, and I think MacRumors either phrased that poorly or meddled two distinct issues.

However, even in gross bandwidth, it only does USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gb/s), not Gen 2 (10 Gb/s). That's pretty disappointing for a $299 dock in 2017. As for whether the controller actually achieves anything close to 5 Gb/s anyway (625 MB/s), that's another matter.

In any event thats pretty fast and maybe they kept it down because of the overall bandwidth of the device?
That the video performance if using 2 monitors or using the thunderbolt for audio might suffer?
Don't know just theorizing

 

[MrX8503]

Plugging in one cable that does it all is a very nice convenience. It's expensive, but very nice.

I've been waiting years for this type of convenience and so I have no problems paying for it.

Haters don't understand this convenience and have 20 cables hanging off the side of their laptop that they have to unplug/plug in everyday.

 

[petsounds]

It's good to see a TB3 dock finally shipping (still waiting for Belkin's). I'm not a fan of the hardware design though, especially the giant white logo on the front.

 

[DongleLife]

I have found the way OWC has handled this to be terrible. The constant delays show no respect for the customers. If you don't know when something is going to ship, then just say that. To constantly set and miss shipping times for pre-orders is irresponsible.

 

[CalmCruiser]

.

I sincerely appreciate the patience - the Dock rocks (and we'll reach out on any noise as that's not to be expected, these are quiet) - and the wait is nearly over. I hate that it's taken this long and, again, can't say enough thank you's for the patience.

Thank you.

Hi Larry, I preordered the dock in November. Reading the review is making me doubt the preorder because I use a 15" MBP. Will it get enough juice via the dock?

 

[theluggage]

Haters don't understand this convenience and have 20 cables hanging off the side of their laptop that they have to unplug/plug in everyday.

If only we could hang 20 cables off the side of a 2016 MacBook Pro - or, at least, the 6 or so that you could with the previous model. Preferably the USB-A, MiniDisplayPort, HDMI and Magsafe cables that we already have rather than new USB-C ones or dongles. For those of us who want a MacBook Pro as a "desktop replacement" the new Macs have made docks like this a near-essential rather than a convenience. That's not OWC's fault - Apple should have ensured that there was at least one option ready-to-roll when the new machines launched.

 

[bartvk]

Plugging in a hard drive

Yeah I don't understand why they didn't plug in an external SSD.
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Hi Larry, I preordered the dock in November. Reading the review is making me doubt the preorder because I use a 15" MBP. Will it get enough juice via the dock?

Yes. Everyday, my 15" MBP gets by with 45W. Unless you're pegging the CPU and/or GPU at 100% for more than an hour, you'll have no problem with the 60W that the OWC dock provides.