Nice! Yeah I hear ya

Thanks ... I think 😉

It’s a compliment... I think 😉

Oh wow. Passing through power will definitely heat them up. My smaller ones can get pretty hot as well. These larger ones seem to manage that better

Nice! Yeah, I have two (got same one at work) now and love them!

I’ve honestly never fully understood that as well. I don’t know if it comes down to bus speed or power requirements or what. I think they obviously assume the USB two ports will be used for keyboard and mouse so it doesn’t matter on speed, but why not have faster reports? I don’t fully understand

How many and which ports do you want/need? All of these docks will work with it

👍 I appreciate the support ☕️

I use the bigger dock and it works great for me. I love that one port charges and runs my monitors

None of the docks will let you run two monitors on the M1. Unless the second is your main display. For another display you you can use a USB adapter plugged into your dock such as this one (affiliate link): amzn.to/3nuQ5B6 Let me know if that helps

For that you would need a secondary USB to HDMI adapter

Obviously the new M1 I can’t test yet, but I would assume it’d work with docks that support 3 monitors. 👍

You would think the bigger box is big enough to have an integrated power supply. It is nice that you don’t have to have a separate USB-C charger though

Ok. You are much more limited for sure. I haven’t tried any TB2 because 1) I always had full size USB ports and 2) there weren’t easily portable it seemed

Warm is Ok and normal I would say. Especially if you are passing power through it too. It shouldn’t be to hot to touch or anything though.

I would say you’d be better off buying a smaller one with a USB extension cable

@@BeforeYouBuyReview Thanks for getting back! Yes, that seems one way round the problem. Just a bit odd that in a massively saturated market, no one seems to be filling that particular gap. Not a rare use case, I'd have thought, especially with the new iMacs having so few ports and no SD.

Yeah I hear ya. Usually there’s an abundance of options LOL

Any of these bigger ones with multiple HDMI/Display should work - might need to make sure drivers are installed. Not sure what you mean by 5 pins to plug into docking station though.

I'm not positive that chip can handle 3 monitors at once. I would probably try using a USB to HDMI video card. They aren't high performance machines, and the USB to HDMI is enough to get you a screen but not don't expect anything fancy out of it

@@BeforeYouBuyReview Not necessarily tri-monitors "linked" to MacBook, only one really. I'm not a video editor and don't really require high performance. My PS4 will be used for the third. Mainly, I'm wanting the docking station for port usage (because we all know Mac's ports just don't cut it lol), and to be able to use headphones (dongle) and USB keyboard on either when needed, without having to unplug and replug. So I guess my question is... will the TB2 cable (from Macbook) > adapter (TB2 female > TB3 male) > docking station HDMI > monitor - will that function?

Gotcha. I’m not positive on that one. It would have to be a true thunderbolt to HDMI cable not USB-C to HDMI I believe. Thunderbolt two doesn’t support USB obviously so it wouldn’t pass any USB data

Good insight. The most questions I have gotten were around which dock based on size and what to think about for ports and portability. I can definitely agree, especially depending on industry, speed is definitely important. I’ll have to do a follow up

@@BeforeYouBuyReview Yeah I'm not surprised as people typically assume that they will get the advertised speed of the connection (e.g., USB 3.2 = 20GB) but apparently that is not the case with these hubs. I Look forward to seeing performance tests in the future. I should add that some of the some hubs simply don't work properly when you try and do several things at a time or push them a bit. I might suggest that you get the highest speed devices that you can (e.g., Samsung T7, Sony SD card, etc) and see if hub limits the performance. Compare native performance of the device vs performance through a hub with difference workloads (e.g, copy of large files, random read/write operations), and maybe even try reading contents of a SD card while copy large files on an attached external drive. Just a thought...

Yup exactly. Get ideas here. I almost bought a NVMe SSD and thunderbolt case on Black Friday but I almost always edit locally (1 to 2 projects at a time) and store future/past projects in cloud storage so no major need. Now I have a need ... for testing ... 😉👍

@@BeforeYouBuyReview As you know with the advent of external NMME drives and ever falling SSD's prices it's becoming more feasible to just edit your 4K videos directly on these SSD. Combine that with the ever shrinking # of ports on the laptops and I think the performance of hubs will become increasingly important. Look forward to seeing you performance test in the future Cheers

I said 8 inch port? Hmm ... oh I wonder if I said 1/8” ... headphone jack

Yes, I am currently using 3 of these for testing right now on my MacBook Air M1

Nice! Glad the video had helped. Yes, the larger one could help with that! Are those 4K monitors?

@@BeforeYouBuyReview I do not believe so. 1080p (not entirely sure what that means tbh). I understand hertz/fps but not the 4K/1080p details.

That refers to the resolution. How much can fit on your screen and how detailed it is essentially

@@BeforeYouBuyReview So even though they are only 1080p, the Totu would still work?

As far as I’ve read, as long as it’s a 2018 or latest and you use one of the latest Totu modes that have VGA as well. I have another video showing one that does I just posted last week

I don’t have one to 100% confirm, but yes, they should work. From everything I’ve read most of them work as expected, with some just having a few random issues. I would not get a larger desk one, but one of the smaller ones I linked to for instance. That’s because the larger ones actually need a driver usually. I hope that helps!

Depending on needs, I personally like the bigger one that allows you to have a lot of ports front and back. Works great with multiple monitors as well

I went with the Aukey 12-in-1. Seems like it would meet my needs. Thanks again.

You bet! Happy to help!

Not sure one would have 8 USB ports alone. You will need a separate USB hub plug into the main dock for that I’m guessing

Yes!! 👍 That’s the best part of a docking station like this

I think that can run 3 monitors. You could use Mini display to HDMI adapters

Yes. That’s the laptop I now have

What do you mean it didn't work? Was your MBAir USB-C? You couldn't get the monitor to work?

I don’t have one to test but it should work. If not, you could for sure use it for one monitor and your onboard HDMI for the other

Do you want to connect the two devices together? What are you trying to accomplish?

Cause that might be a limitation on the MacBook airs processor with built-in graphics card is my guess. What year is the MacBook Air?

you cant extend on a mac--only mirror. It;s a limitation of the mac os not the hardware.

@@bluestripetiger You really can. I did it this morning. You have to uncheck the mirror display box in the arrangement tab of the Display section of System Preferences.

The best thing to do is to use an enclosure like this to put your drive into. Then you can pull data off of it onto any computer and use it as a USB drive amzn.to/3qhRwF9 (Amazon affiliate link)

If they are NVMe drives then you’ll actually want a pure thunderbolt dock. If standard Sata drives or SSDs you’ll probably be fine with the bigger dock that comes with a power supply. You could probably run one of the others as well and it should feed enough power I’m guessing. Just depends if you want a portable or permanent set up

@@BeforeYouBuyReview thanks. I believe these are Sata drives. The WD has its own power but the Seagate only has a USB cable to connect Would any of the hub you mention in the video works for me?

Yes. It should pass though power

@@BeforeYouBuyReview thank you for the quick response

I feel like this is a bait … 😉 If your laptop is so thin and light and you might have a need to plug in something. 99% of the time I don’t carry one with me.

Have you checked mic setting here: Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Dictation window

@@BeforeYouBuyReview Yes it is showing my external mic, when I double click the fn key to pull up dictation, my mic is moving in the setting but the dictation icon mic is not moving as i speak. As what I read online its a security hard wire on the motherboard. This does not make scene to me at all. if anyone can figure this one out its has to be you!

Hmmm. That sure seems strange if the software says one thing and the hardware another. Maybe it’s a bug that will be fixed?!

@@BeforeYouBuyReview Ya thats not going to work. Ive read more into this. Says something with the T2 chip set that when the macbook in clamshell mode it disable the dictation for security. Only way around is if the program has its own dictation. But macos dictation does not work. This is silly @APPLE should change this.

If it’s a 7-in-2, that usually means it takes two USB-C ports on the laptop.

@@BeforeYouBuyReview So does that means it is faster and better sir?

Depends on the specs of the device. Generally means it can have more devices plugged in or could be faster

Not many. I think I have come across a few. May need a true thunderbolt one for that. I’ll see if I can find any

@@BeforeYouBuyReview Seems like CharJenPro is dropping their Ultimate Dock with 4K@60Hz and the other specs aren't too shabby either. Do you think you can do a review of it when it comes out? www.charjenpro.com/products/ultimatedock

Yeah I hear ya. Most people using laptops rarely need more than 1Gb internet. Do you use it for connecting to a NAS?

@@BeforeYouBuyReview That, and we currently have gigabit to the house with plans to go to 2gbs when it is offered. I'd at least like the option as I try to run as much over wire as possible.

Nice! We can technically have 10Gb to the home. It’s insane. I actually have the standard 250/250 plan which is plenty fast realistically. Google Drive I have seen up to 500mbps at work (1Gb internet there) but otherwise nothing really fast enough. My brother-in-law has the 10Gb plan and has an insane home network Ha!

@@BeforeYouBuyReview Yeah. Google Fiber, if you can get it is hard to beat. $70 a month for 1gb, $100 a month for 2gb.

Nice! Our local municipal is insane! Rated one of best in nation. We get 250 for $57, 1Gb for $76 and 10Gb (!!) for $117