StarTech.com has introduced its latest Thunderbolt 4/USB4 docking station, which has a plethora of ports and supports four display outputs. This makes it suitable for 4Kp60 quad-monitor setups often used for professional applications. The Thunderbolt 4 Quad Display Docking Station can also deliver up to 98W of power to the host, which is enough to feed a high-end laptop, such as Apple’s MacBook Pro 16.
StarTech’s 15-in-1 docking (132N-TB4USB4DOCK) has pretty much everything that one comes to expect from a dock engineered explicitly for demanding professionals, such as those involved in photography, content creation, video production, and computer-aided design. The unit comes with one Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 port with a 98W power delivery capability to connect to the host, a 2.5 GbE adapter, six USB Type-A ports (three supporting 10 Gbps, two supporting 5 Gbps, and one being USB 2.0 for up to 7.5W charging), one USB Type-C connector (at 10 Gbps), four display outputs (two DP 1.4, two HDMI 2.1), an SD Card reader with UHS-II, a microSD card reader with UHS-II, and a 3.5-mm audio jack.
The dock’s main selling feature is, its support for up to four displays. Of course, this is a valuable capability, but it has a couple of catches. The device can support four 4Kp60 displays when connected to a laptop featuring Intel’s 12th or 14th Generation Core processor using a Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 connector and with DSC enabled. With AMD Ryzen 6000 and Intel’s 11th Gen Core-based systems, only three 4Kp60 displays are supported. Meanwhile, with MacBooks, users must get on with two 5Kp60 or one 6Kp60 display. The good news is that the Thunderbolt 4 Quad Display Docking Station requires no drivers and works seamlessly with MacOS, Windows, and ChromeOS.
The docking station has a 180W power supply, so it can simultaneously charge a laptop and power on all the remaining ports.
Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 docks with rich capabilities are not cheap as they have to pack loads of quite expensive controllers, and StarTech’s 15-in-1 docking station is no exception, as it costs $330.99.
The StarTech.com Thunderbolt 4 Quad Display Docking Station is available for purchase directly from the company and through various IT resellers and distributors such as CDW, Amazon, Ingram Micro, TD SYNNEX, and D&H.
