By PURPLELEC | 23 August 2023 | 0 Comments
Best DisplayPort Thunderbolt 4 dock - Caldigit Thunderbolt Station 4
• One upstream Thunderbolt 4 port (40Gbps, 98W)
• Two downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports (40Gbps, 15W)
• One DisplayPort 1.4 video port
• Five USB-A ports (10Gbps, 7.5W)
• One USB-C port (10Gbps, 20W)
• Two USB-C ports (10Gbps, 7.5W)
• 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet
• UHS-II SD and microSD card readers (312MBps)
• 3.5mm combo audio jack (front)
• 3.5mm Audio In and Audio Out ports (back)
• 230W power supply
For years, Caldigit ruled the Thunderbolt 3 roost with its compact but powerful Thunderbolt Station 3 Plus (TS3 Plus). Its Thunderbolt 4 successor, the Thunderbolt Station 4 (TS4) is physically and stylistically similar but boasts even more ports at even faster speeds.
All the USB (5x USB-A, 3x USB-C) and Thunderbolt ports (3x TB4) are super fast and offer impressive device charging—at the front, there’s a USB-C port with 20W power.
Caldigit has sacrificed one of the TB4 ports for a dedicated DisplayPort, which is fine if you need that video port but not as flexible as leaving three downstream TB4 ports with which you can add adapters for external displays.
Windows users with a TB4 or USB4 computer can connect a single 8K display at 60Hz, or two 4K at 60Hz; Mac users, a single 6K display at 60Hz, or 2 4K at 60Hz—Macs using an M2 Ultra chip support up to a 8K single display. Older Intel Macs and newer M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBooks can connect two 4K displays at 60Hz, although plain M1 MacBooks are sadly limited to just the one external display. Boasting version 1.4 of DisplayPort, this dock can support very high refresh rates on a single monitor: 144Hz on 4K, and 240Hz at 2560×1440-pixel resolution.
Wired Internet is 2.5 times faster than you’ll find on any other dock or hub tested here, if you have 2.5GbE (or above) compatible devices.
The 230W power supply is the most powerful of any dock we’ve tested, and the dock can charge a laptop at 98W.
The Caldigit TS4 matches the Sonnet Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 SuperDock for most ports at the fastest speeds. It lacks the Echo 20’s SSD enclosure but boasts the greatest power.
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