Docking station available for M1530?

Haven't been able to find this information anywhere... is there a docking station available for the M1530?

 

this one looks like it could be pretty good. It interfaces with your express card slot instead of usb

 

Did you mean to include a link? (I can't actually see what you're looking at through the computer.) ;-)

 

If you want a dock with AC power...no.

The express card docks are okay...if you need video up to only a certain resolution and/or need audio.

After that, a USB hub would be a better solution.

 

No, there isn't.

 

So what resolution will an express card dock handle?

 

If you want real docking stations from dell, you need a laditude or percision notebook.

 

Probably about 1280x1024 at best. Nothing too great.

But the above comment is right...these notebooks just do not have a good dock option.

 

i've been looking at something like this:
http://www.belkin.com/au/highspeeddock/

doesn't do full-hd, but seems to do most things i want it to do.

 

Now that's interesting...

 

yep - it does look good, although expensive. the full-hd doesn't bother me so much, since my tv is only 720p anyway. the separate digital audio output is great, as are the usb ports.

but it's expensive, and also the expresscard cord is very short - so doesn't look ideal for my setup.

there's also a version made by targus - it's uglier, but does the same thing as the belkin one.
http://www.targus.com/au/product_details.asp?sku=ACP60AU

 

Ugly is OK with me. The Targus seems to get better ratings than the other one.

Still can't believe they won't make a docking station for the XPS machines.

I found speakers that also act as a USB hub. I wonder if there are any issues running peripherals from your computer's USB to speakers that also have additional USB outlets?

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/speakers_audio/home_pc_speakers/devices/3503&cl=us,en

 

can't see how the logitech one would be any different to a normal usb hub without the speakers?

the xps doesn't have the docking port connector that would work well with a proper docking station - unlike the latitudes, and my old sony vaio. it would be nice to have a proper docking station, but i guess there were more important factors for me when buying mine.

 

Word of warning -- do not purchase the Belkin high speed docking station!

This past week I took delivery of a new 1530. Since I use this at work and home, I asked the Dell sales rep for a docking station. He found this Belkin on their site and I added it to the order.

So the laptop arrived and I spent a couple days getting it cleaned (thanks again flamenko!), software installed, and all configured. As soon as this was done I got a good backup of the system and started to install the Belkin docking station and software. This is where it all went wrong. Thank goodness for backups.

The install was uneventful. But the first reboot while hooked up to the docking station resulted in a BSOD with stop code 8E. After the reboot, the exernal monitor wasn't getting a signal, the sound stopped working, and the network connection was dead. The only thing that worked was my USB devices. Somehow I managed to get everything working (I had to bridge two LAN network connections). But on the next reboot I had the same result. Forget it - this thing must go back!

One big problem though -- the Belkin software would not uninstall.

A call to Belkin resulted in the most frustrating support call I've ever had. They were completely unresponsive and referred me to Dell since that was where I bought the dock. I tried to reason with them -- "this isn't Dell's software it's Belkins, please help me." and "If I had bought this directly from Belkin, what would you do?" No response. He would not let me speak with a Level 2 Tech and said he couldn't transfer calls. Ugh. Goodbye and thank you for nothing I told him. I called Dell and the rep was horrified at what Belkin told me. He didn't have any knowledgebase info on the docking station and suggested a few things to help with the uninstallation. None of them helped and I ended up doing a manual uninstall by blowing away the Belkin directory, Start menu folder, and carefully removing all the Belkin Registry keys.

Lesson learned. So the Belkin is on its way back to Dell and I've ordered the Targus dock. I'll report back next week with first impressions.

BTW - these two docks are able to do DVI connection up to 1600x1200 resolution. They look great on paper. But on paper is as far as the Belkin comes for performing. Stay away from this docking station.