Plugable USB-C Triple Display Docking Station Review

So you have a new laptop and a very old monitor. Plugable has a solution for you: the Plugable USB-C Triple Display Docking Station ($179), the only USB-C dock PCMag has tested that has a 15-year-old DVI port on it. If that's what you need, look not further.

Plugable is a geeky company, run by geeks, and its docking stations show it: They look like PC accessories from the 1980s. The Triple Display Docking Station ($189.95 at Amazon) stands tall like the prow of a ship. It measures 7 by 1.8 by 3.3 inches (HWD) and weighs about a pound. On the front are USB-C and USB Type-A ports, along with headphone and microphone jacks. On the back, you get three more USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a USB-C port for connecting to your computer, and three rather unusual display jacks: one DVI and two HDMI, one supporting 1080p and one supporting 4K displays at 30 frames per second (fps).

Let's get into those display ports, because they're a little quirky. The lower-resolution HDMI and DVI ports are both DisplayLink, which requires special drivers and doesn't currently work properly with macOS Sierra. Think of them as mostly for hooking up a Windows 10 PC to that old, DVI-only monitor that the IT department gave you. Because it only supports 1080p, you can't drive large monitors through that DVI jack, either.

I found more success hooking up through the 4K HDMI port, which uses the same USB-C Alt Mode technology as other USB-C docks.

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The dock's front USB port is powered at 1.13 amps, while the rear ports are powered at 0.5 amp. They'll trickle-charge a phone, but not fast-charge it. The dock also offers 60 watts of power to charge your laptop through the USB-C port.

Testing and Conclusions

I tested the dock with an HP Spectre x360 13-w023dx ( at Amazon) , a 150Mbps Internet connection, and an external solid-state drive (SSD) capable of reading and writing at 400MBps. The SSD speeds on this dock were the highest of any I tested: around 393MBps read and 360MBps write. The audio and 4K HDMI output were also clear, and it charged the laptop. I should note that you're only going to get 30 frames per second (fps) with a 4K monitor, but that you can get up to 60fps on a 1080p panel.

At $179, the Plugable USB-C Triple Display Docking Station is the most expensive of the docks we tested. Yes, it performs the best, by a nose. But unless you absolutely need DVI for a Windows PC, the smaller Plugable USB-C Docking Station With Power Delivery ( at Amazon) looks like a better buy, and our Editors' Choice.

Plugable USB-C Triple Display Docking Station

3.5

See It

$189.95 at Amazon

MSRP $179.00

Pros

• Equipped with a native DVI port.
• Fast USB performance.

Cons

• Expensive.
• DisplayLink is very picky.

The Bottom Line

With an old-school DVI port and DisplayLink support, the Plugable USB-C Triple Display Docking Station is a USB-C dock for a very specific user.