StarTech.com has released its first Certified Thunderbolt 4 enabled laptop docking station: the US$439 Thunderbolt TB4CDOCK. It’s designed to harness the performance and flexibility offered by Thunderbolt 4, including 40Gbps high-bandwidth transfer speeds, 96W Power Delivery and 8K video resolution.
The docking station uses a single Thunderbolt™ 4, Thunderbolt™ 3 or standard USB4 port to provide connectivity options when connected to compatible laptops. According to the folks at StarTech, utilizing a bandwidth of 40Gbps, users will benefit from the following key connectivity features.
- Lag-free video performance, unlike other USB-GPU-based laptop docking stations, which is particularly beneficial for MacBooks.
- Compatible with Windows Thunderbolt 4/USB4 laptops or Apple M1 Max/M1 Pro, plus backwards compatible with Intel Thunderbolt 3 MacBooks
- 3x downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports to flexibly connect multiple high-resolution displays or connect three Thunderbolt peripherals directly with support for daisy chaining up to a total of five Thunderbolt devices. Each port also provides 15W of power to connect multiple bus-powered Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3 or USB devices such as high-performance SSD’s or a 10GbE network adapter.
- 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Type-A ports to connect USB peripheral devices
- 1x USB 2.0 (480Mbps) Type-A port that supports BC 1.2 with 7.5W (1.5A) for charging tablets and smartphones
- 1x Gigabit Ethernet port with PXE boot and WoL to connect to a wired LAN
- 1x Secure Digital (SD) 4.0/UHS-II card reader to externally access SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards
- 1x 3.5mm 4-position TRRS Audio Jack to connect a 3.5mm headset
