docking station - should I?

Bought docking station almost 2 yrs ago; never installed since the guy who talked me into it went away.... Now I'm thinking of doing it myself because I need to replace my desktop XP pc and I already have a Win7 laptop -- can't see why I would need to buy a new desktop. It seems like the docking station would make it so much easier to quickly use my laptop at my desk with a full-sized monitor and regular keyboard when I want to.

I have the Kensington "Universal Notebook Docking Station with VGA/DVI and Ethernet" (model M01065) and a Dell Studio 1555 laptop. The docking station isn't one of those big plastic sleeves I see in some Kens. pix. It's just a little box that looks like a big D-link with outlets for a printer, monitor, speakers, keybd, extra USB ports. Sits upright on the desk like my router & modem. No full manual came w/this device; only a quick start sheet w/photos only.

My questions:
1) Does this plan make sense?
2) How do I keep my router in the loop so I'll have wifi in the house? I'm thinking modem --> router --> docking station.
3) I also use a D-Link now with my desktop. Can I just plug that into a docking station port?

You can probably tell I'm far from being a computer geek, but I do understand a little of this stuff. I'm nervous as hell about doing this because I read some bad reviews on the Dell site about problems with this docking station (green screens; delays; etc.) Can anyone ease my fears??? THANK YOU!

 

someone just made a usb 3.0 docking station....was it targus? Maybe get targus and a usb 3.0 express slot card?

 

I doubt there's any actual problem with just using it, but you should be aware of the limitations of first-gen Displaylink - the tech that allows your video signals to travel over USB.

Displaylink works by effectively having a software graphics adapter that drives the USB-connected display.

This means two things:
- Graphics performance quite a bit worse than the most basic of integrated graphics on a >3 year old notebook
- At the expense of a notable hit on your CPU (since your processor is effectively doubling as your graphics chip) once you start trying to do stuff like video.

The ATI graphics chip (presumably) on your Studio 1555 would fare much better for everyday working as a desktop replacement - and since the processor isn't being taxed when e.g. viewing Youtube, etc, the laptop will run cooler as well.

True, you could run the rest of the USB stuff - keyboards and network connection, which you would hook up to your router - through the docking station, but once again I believe the onboard network adapter will be more efficient.

So really, what I'm saying is that you're best off hooking everything to your notebook directly.

 

Thank you everyone for your replies.
@ Vogelbung -- you said pretty much what I was thinking was the case... that I would be better off not using a docking station. sigh. Maybe I can eBay or Craigs List this thing. Might be worth biting the bullet and just getting a new desktop so I don't have to plug & unplug everything. I keep getting a warning message on this old XP every time I restart it that the BIOS battery is low. That's been my push to just do something before this pc just won't start any more. Sometimes computer technology makes me want to cry....

 

I'm always a fan of docking. I have the mini3 dock for my thinkpad and it was worth every penny. It makes it to so much more quick and easy to hook up when I get home.

 

keep an eye on woot.com they always have amd quad cores doing for 350 bucks so if all you need is a general purpose machien checkout woot.com. They do it like once a month or every other month.

 

If you would still prefer a notebook and a docking station then get a Dell latitude. They have a real dock, not one that runs through the USB. IMO this is the only way to run a laptop on a dock.