Modern laptops and tablets have shed almost every port worth having. This docking station puts them back. Two upstream heads — USB-C and USB-A — fan out into eight connections, so a single plug gives you display output, data ports, card readers, an audio jack and pass-through charging without a tangle of separate dongles competing for space.
The aluminium shell dissipates heat well under sustained load and stays cool enough to sit next to a laptop palm rest. A short captive lead keeps the hub off the desk edge and takes strain off the port, which is where most cheap adapters eventually break. Micro SD and SD card readers sit on the front face for quick access, and the 3.5 mm jack restores wired headphones on devices that dropped the socket.
It suits laptops, tablets and phones with USB-C DisplayPort Alt Mode, and works with Windows, macOS, Android and most Linux distributions with no drivers to install. Plug it in and the ports appear. Avoid drawing high current from several ports at once on a bus-powered connection, and use the pass-through charging port when running power-hungry peripherals such as external drives.
Configuration: 8 ports from 2 upstream connectors (USB-C + USB-A)
