User guide
Page 10
my monitor) or smaller Mini DisplayPort variations.
As it happens, the Thunderbolt ports on the Belkin
dock and all other Thunderbolt ports double as Mini
DisplayPort ports. So, to hook my monitor to the
dock, I scrounged up a DisplayPort-to-Mini Display-
Port cable, with the big end going into the display,
and the smaller prong plugging into the dock.
This arrangement worked ne, but revealed a prob-
lem: I couldn’t use my display and an external drive
at the same time, since I had only one free Thun-
derbolt port on the dock for either, and no second
Thunderbolt port on the drive for daisy chaining
purposes. To use one of the drives, I had to unplug
the display. That was annoying, but not the end of
the world.
The Belkin dock has a clever design. All ports are lo-
cated on one of the device’s long sides, and you can
point that part away from you to reduce visual clut-
ter (which is soothing for this OCD suerer). You can
then feed only the cords you need through a rubber-
sheathed canal cut into the dock bottom, and out a
single orice in the front.
Attack of the Clones – When I stacked a bunch of
other Thunderbolt docks, I noticed something weird:
Cosmetic touches aside, the gizmos are identical.
They have all the same ports in all the same loca-
tions, and their power supplies are even compatible.
What was going on here?
One of the dock makers cleared this up for me: “The
docks are all based on the same Intel reference de-
sign,” he
said.
These
docks
are:
CalDigit’s
Thun-
derbolt
Station,
Elgato’s Thunderbolt Dock, and StarTech’s Thunder-
bolt Docking Station.
The docks each have three USB 3.0 ports, a gigabit
Ethernet port, a headphone port, and a microphone
port, along with those two Thunderbolt ports, but
no FireWire 800 ports.
Predictably, there was little dierence in how the
docks worked. As with the Belkin dock, I could plug
my MacBook Air into one Thunderbolt port on each
dock, with the DisplayPort monitor connected to the
other.
HDMI on each dock gave me another option: I could
use that port for my moni-
tor, while using one of the
Thunderbolt ports for my
Mac and the other for an
external drive. But there’s
a problem: the display’s
resolution maxes out at
1080p or 1,920 by 1,080 pixels, which is great for a
big-screen TV, but not great for a desktop display.
Going the Mini DisplayPort route, I got 2,560 by
1,400 pixels.
Unlike the Belkin dock, which is big enough for all
of its ports to be positioned on one long edge, the
three dock clones put a trio of ports — audio out,
audio in, and one of their three USB ports — on the
front. This looks understated and elegant.
In terms of styling, the units run the gamut. The
CalDigit model is brushed aluminum in its entirety,
matching Apple’s notebooks. The StarTech model
has my least-favorite aesthetic with shiny black
plastic along the top and bottom, and light-colored
metal along all the edges. The Elgato is the opposite,
with light-colored metal wrapping around the unit’s
longer axis, and black front and back where all the
ports go — I nd this more attractive than StarTech’s
approach.
CalDigit claims its all-aluminum design “helps with
heat dissipation.”
The docks, as noted, have minor feature dierences.
StarTech’s dock includes a stand for those wanting to
position the unit vertically.
