Editor's Note: After the publication of this review in early November 2016, we found that the dock is not compatible with the 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro, although it is compatible with the 13-inch models.
Creative types picking up a new MacBook ( at Amazon) or MacBook Pro ($808.85 at Amazon) are probably feeling the pain of that missing SD card slot. Maybe they're also wondering where to plug in their external hard drives and Wacom tablets. If that's you, the OWC USB-C Dock ($149.99) is what you need.
Like the other USB-C docks we tested, the OWC USB-C Dock is a hunk of plastic. Its top and bottom are black, and the sides come in four colors to match the four MacBook colors. The dock measures 7.6 by 3.5 by 1.0 inches (HWD) and weighs 1 pound. Unfortunately, the soft plastic top of the unit scratches and nicks very easily. The power light is also on the bottom, which is an odd choice.
The OWC dock has an SD card slot on the front, along with a combined headphone and microphone jack and a single USB 3.1 Type-A port that outputs 1.23 amps of power. On the back, there are three USB 3.1 Type-A ports. There are also two USB-C ports (one for your laptop), a Gigabit Ethernet port, and an HDMI port that supports 4K displays at 30 frames per second (fps), or 1080p displays at 60fps. The dock can output 80 watts of power for your laptop.
Similar Products
Plugable USB-C Docking Station With Power Delivery
Plugable USB-C Triple Display Docking Station
CalDigit USB-C Dock
Apple MacBook Pro 13-Inch (2016)
Testing and Conclusions
I tested the OWC dock with an HP Spectre x360 13-w023dx ( at Amazon) , a 150Mbps Internet connection, an external solid-state drive (SSD) capable of reading and writing at 400MBps, and a SanDisk Extreme Pro SD card capable of 95MBps speeds. In doing so, I saw the same minor speed slowdowns I did with all of the half-dozen docks I tested. The SD card read at 85MBps and wrote at 78MBps. The USB ports read between 377 and 390MBps and wrote at between 336 and 365MBps. Using the SSD and SD card slot at the time time didn't slow either of them down. Ditto for lighting up the SSD, SD card, HDMI, and Ethernet transfer, all at the same time. The dock had no problem powering our laptop.
So performance is fine with the OWC USB-C Dock, and this is the only comprehensive dock with an SD card slot. For the $20 you pay over the Editors' Choice Plugable USB-C Docking Station With Power Delivery ( at Amazon) , you're getting that SD card slot plus upgrading two of the USB ports to 3.0. If you don't need the SD card or you have a 15-inch MacBook Pro, you should also look at the Caldigit USB-C Dock, which gives you a separate microphone jack and a DisplayPort output.
The OWC USB-C Dock is the dock to get if you're looking for one with an SD card slot.
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