Short a port? Maybe even two? The latest ultraslim laptops, such as the HP Spectre x360 13-w023dx ( at Amazon) or Apple's 12-inch MacBook ( at Amazon) and new MacBook Pro ($808.85 at Amazon) have been casting off ports left and right in favor of USB-C, leaving everyone with legacy peripherals in the lurch. Fortunately, there are a slew of USB-C docks on the market to fit various needs. If you need a keyboard, mouse, external hard drive, headphones, and monitor, the Plugable USB-C Docking Station With Power Delivery ($129) will be the right option, and our Editors' Choice.
The Plugable USB-C Docking Station ( at Amazon) isn't stylish—it looks like it's from 1985—but it gets the job done. It's a black box measuring 6.6 by 2.9 by 1.0 inches (HWD) and weighing half a pound.
On the front are two USB 3.0 ports that can deliver 1.5 amps of power, along with a USB-C port and headphone and microphone jacks. On the back you'll find two USB 2.0 ports each delivering 0.5 amp of power, along with a Gigabit Ethernet port, an HDMI output, and USB-C and power inputs. The dock also has a sizable, generic-looking power brick that lets it deliver up to 60 watts of power to your connected PC. When it's plugged in, power and connectivity lights appear.
Testing and Conclusions
The dock is plug-and-play. We tested it using an HP Spectre x360 13 laptop, a 150Mbps Internet connection, and an external solid-state drive (SSD) capable of reading and writing at 400MBps. Using the front ports, there wasn't much degradation in SSD speed—only to around 384MBps read and 345MBps write. The audio and 4K HDMI outputs were clear, and it charged our laptop. We 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.
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The rear USB 2.0 ports are primarily for a mouse and keyboard, as they're too slow for most modern storage.
I also like this dock because Plugable is clearly run by geeks. The company's webpage has regular support updates and includes a long list of which dock features are supported by which laptops.
The Plugable USB-C Docking Station With Power Delivery gives you a greatest-hits lineup of common ports, and at $129 it's cheaper than some of the other docks out there. That makes it our Editors' Choice. If you need DisplayPort, DVI, or VGA ports, or an SD card slot, you're out of luck, though. For those, check out our lineup of The Best USB-C Docks For Your Laptop.
The Plugable USB-C Docking Station has the best mix of ports for the most common desktop use of a USB-C laptop.
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