Cheap docking stations/USB hubs?

Hello all,

I tend to take my laptop around a lot and I get kind of annoyed at having to constantly hook up all the various USB cables and the monitor it interfaces with.

Docking stations seem ideal for convenience, but they seem awfully expensive.

Are there any affordable docks or USB hubs out there? Like less than 30-40 dollars?

 

What laptop do you have? If you have a Latitude E, the dock is still kind of expensive, but if you have a Latitude D, the dock can be had for all sorts of cheap. If you have a Vostro, I'm not too sure what your options are...

 

I have a D series docking station that I no longer use and is just collecting dust...

 

I have a D630 - sorry forgot to mention that. What kind of docking stations can I get that are cheap?

 

Are you based in England? Send me a PM and we can arrange for you to have the docking station that I have gathering dust at home right now.

 

Yeah lots of cheap D-series docks around. Not only do they make your desk neat, but you can hook up an external LCD using DVI, instead of using the VGA that's the only possibility with the D630's ports. Better image quality, esp. @ WUXGA resolution.

You will need the 90W power supply in order to use the D-series docks -- the 65W unit isn't strong enough.

If it doesn't work out acquiring one from the other poster in England, I've bought them for as little as $5 off of eBay. PR01X is the model number. It'd be a travesty to use a generic cheapie USB 'dock' when a properly engineered solution exists for your laptop, and is available dirt cheap.

 

While your offer is extremely generous, I'm located in the US and I'm sure shipping would be expensive. Thank you though!

--

About wattage of the power supply, how do you find that? Mine only has a voltage indication, which I find kind of odd.

 

You can pick up the PR01X for just about nothing on eBay these days. I've been using one for a couple years now, and I've never had a problem with it.

Here's one for $16 shipped: http://cgi.ebay.com/DELL-DOCKING-ST...in_0?hash=item1e57dd1a4c&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

If you need a bit more functionality, you can go for the better-featured PD01X, which goes for just a bit more.

Here's one for $19 shipped: http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Original-D...in_0?hash=item518b9f04e7&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

I only wish the E-Series docks were this cheap -_-

 

Thanks!

Just out of curiosity, what can the PD01X do that the PR01X can't?

 

It's got it's own power brick, a slot for a D-Series modular bay device, and I think you can put like a PCI add-in card into the thing (ie a PCI GPU if you want to run a hojillion screens), but I'm not totally sure how that last one works.