Ugreen’s new Maxidoks are fantastic, aside from one flaw

I’ve been a longtime person of Ugreen’s docks. They’ve made implausible additions to my residence workplace, permitting me to arrange a system the place, with a single cable, I can join my laptop computer to further displays, a keyboard and mouse, my digital camera, and extra. So when Ugreen reached out about its latest docks, I used to be fairly excited.

Ugreen has two new docks, dubbed Maxidoks, boasting assist for Thunderbolt 5, as much as 8K shows, tons of ports, and extra.

First up, there’s the Ugreen Maxidok 17-in-1. This docking station clocks in at about the identical dimension as a Mac mini and has a ton of choices for connecting your gear. Round entrance, there’s an influence button, slots for SD and microSD playing cards, a 3.5mm audio jack, and three USB 3.2 Sort-C ports (two of which assist whole max charging of as much as 60W PD).

On the again, the 17-in-1 dock has a DC enter for its energy provide, three Thunderbolt 5 ports (one to connect with your laptop computer with assist for as much as 140W PD charging), three USB 3.2 Sort-A ports, two 3.5mm jacks, one DisplayPort, and one Ethernet port. Lastly, there’s a slot so as to add an M.2 SSD on the underside, permitting the Maxidok to double as an additional storage drive.

Regardless of the spectacular record of ports, the Maxidok has a significant flaw right here. You may need observed that the record doesn’t embody HDMI, which may throw a major wrench into your desk setup if you happen to’re something like me.

See, I share my displays between my work laptop computer and my gaming desktop. And my most important monitor solely has three ports — two HDMI and one DisplayPort. That single DisplayPort is already in use with my gaming desktop, which meant for years I used an HDMI cable with my dock. However the Maxidok doesn’t have that choice. Fortunately, I had a USB-C to HDMI cable readily available, although that cable introduced its personal points alongside. (For no matter cause, the MacBooks I’ve been testing lately actually don’t prefer it and gained’t output the precise decision to my show over that cable. However on Home windows, every part works high-quality.)

It’s not an enormous dealbreaker, however positively one thing to bear in mind if you happen to depend on HDMI to your setup. Maybe Ugreen can add an HDMI port for the Maxidok 2.

HDMI hiccup apart, the 17-in-1 Maxidok has been implausible for me. It permits me to simply join two shows to my work laptop computer, and it makes it very straightforward to attach different issues as properly. I like having a central hub for every part, particularly since I modify laptops commonly as I overview them for work, so having a setup that works nice throughout tons of units is implausible.

The built-in energy supply actually helps with this. I used to be hesitant to make use of docks which have their very own energy supply for some time, preferring as an alternative to make use of easier docks and no matter charger I had readily available, although it meant typically utilizing a charger that was too sluggish for the laptop computer I used to be reviewing. However the Maxidok’s 140W charging is greater than sufficient for many laptops, and helped clear up among the litter on my desk.

Lastly, it’s value noting the Maxidok sports activities lively cooling to assist hold temperatures below management. I didn’t discover any obscenely heat temperatures in my time utilizing it, however it positively bought heat throughout heavy use.

Alongside the 17-in-1 Maxidok, Ugreen despatched me a 10-in-1 model. There are a couple of core variations between the 2 docks, although for the value distinction, I feel the trade-offs make quite a lot of sense.

First, the 10-in-1 has a built-in Thunderbolt 5 cable for connecting to your laptop. It helps as much as 110W charging, which needs to be ample for many laptops. Together with that, it has two Thunderbolt 5 ports, a DisplayPort, an ethernet port, and a DC energy port for the dock alongside the again.

Round entrance, the 10-in-1 dock sport three USB 3.2 Sort-A ports, and SD card slot, microSD card slot, and energy button. General, you lose out on some ports, the SSD storage, and the lively cooling. Once more, I feel these are honest tradeoffs, although I feel I’d choose to see the 10-in-1 dock commerce one of many USB-A ports for an additional USB-C port.

Each docks can deal with the identical show choices as properly. On Home windows, the Maxidoks can deal with as much as three further shows, whereas on macOS, it could actually deal with as much as two shows. Nonetheless, the variety of shows, in addition to the decision and refresh fee, will finally be decided by the chip in your laptop.

In my case, I had the Maxidok hooked as much as an Apple Studio Show (5K decision) and an LG OLED show (1440p decision). On some units with weaker chips, like these with the Snapdragon X Plus, I may solely output to 1 show at a time, whereas extra highly effective laptops may output to each with out challenge (excepting the aforementioned points with macOS and my USB-C to HDMI cable)

General, I fairly just like the Ugreen Maxidok. Each the 17- and 10-in-1 docks supply a ton of ports enabling numerous multi-monitor desk setups, they usually work nice with each Home windows and Mac. My solely main grievance is the shortage of an HDMI port — for me, it’s a fairly main miss in a docking station.

In case you’re keen on shopping for a Ugreen Maxidok, you’ll must undergo Amazon in the intervening time. (On the time of publication, Ugreen’s Canada site didn’t record both dock, although I think about that may change ultimately.)

For now, Amazon has each. The Maxidok 17-in-1 retails for $549, whereas the Maxidok 10-in-1 retails for $329. Additional, on the time of writing, Amazon had a coupon accessible for each docks ($70 off for the 17-in-1, $30 for the 10-in-1), which expires on April 1.