Anker, a renowned name in the PC peripherals space, has a new approach to docks and hubs: combine them.
Anker names its new dock Anker Nano Docking Station (13-in-1)and sells it on its website for $149.99. But you don't have to be a 1980s nerd to understand how it works. (If yes, think about Soundwaveboombox decepticon known as transformers who was hiding another Decepticon in his cassette deck such as LaserBeak or Ravager.)
Either way, the Anker Docking Station is both a docking station and a detachable hub, which neatly solves the problem of what to do with a desktop dock when you take your laptop on the go. The Anker 13-in-1 Docking Station pops out a 6-in-1 hub that you can also connect directly to your laptop.
It's a neat trick, but with a couple of drawbacks: first, the entire setup is essentially a larger version of the USB-C dock USB-C hub. Anything that uses a shared USB-C port is connected via a 10Gbps bus, which becomes a problem when routing multiple displays and Ethernet through it.
USB-C docking stations like Anker solve this problem by using Display Stream Compression, a proprietary version of data compression that exists on modern laptops and is supported by two different DisplayPort video interfaces. However, DSC provides different capabilities for different laptops: if your dock supports DisplayPort (DP) 1.4., you can connect up to three 1440p displays to this dock. Those with the older DP 1.2 interface can only connect to three displays at an awkward 1600×900 resolution (or two 1080p displays), as Anker's helpful setup video shows. Intel laptops typically transition between the two, with 11th-gen Core processors most likely to support DP 1.4.
USB-C docking stations are a good choice, but above 10Gbps you may notice stuttering and other issues. Thunderbolt dockswith 40 Gbps connectivity, typically preferred for large multiport docking stations.
The other issue is that the dock's “hub” simply plugs into the dock itself via a single fixed USB-C connector. This is fine for a docking station, but it also means that the hub doesn't have a cable to connect to your laptop. What means the Anker hub portion will fit snugly against your laptop. Since laptop manufacturers typically bundle ports together, this means the hub could end up blocking other ports on your laptop. Anker encourages you to “explore” this, but it's still something to think about.
However, the Anker dock includes an extensive array of ports, just like the hub. The dock also supplies 100W of power to your laptop via a 140W charger. (However, the hub will require a separate USB-C charger to supply power through the input port.
Anchor
How The Verge notesThis hub will work with both Macs and PCs, but with different outputs depending on what Mac hardware you have.
