Are first party docks slower than plugging monitors directly into your laptop?

Are first party docks slower than plugging monitors directly into your laptop?

First party dock as in HP has its own enterprise docking station for its workstation laptops.

I am trying to find a powerful laptop with a good price that can handle alot of screens, multitasking, and downloads. I've thought of Eurocom Shark 3 but after seeing the thread on Eurocom they seem shady.

I remember during an internship I had an HP workstation laptop that plugged into a dock and I thought maybe that would be a good solution though very expensive.

 

First party docks are usually faster than 3rd party because they use dedicated ports direct to the laptop motherboard, think PCIe bridges really. 3rd party docks aren't much more than a fancy USB hub in most cases. The 1st party docks are expensive because they actually work quite well, but require extra hardware not everyone buys.

You might be better off with a small desktop if you're not intending on carrying it around.

 

Technically yes, but the difference is on the scale of nanoseconds - chances are that getting a shorter HDMI or DisplayPort cable would make a bigger difference than plugging the cable directly into the laptop vs plugging into a dock. In any case, you'd never notice it.

@Kuu: The OP is comparing a dock with a port on the laptop itself, not a first party vs third party dock...

 

First party docks are generally pretty affordable on eBay.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Yup, grabbed mine for ~30$, it came with no PSU, but those are usually cheap on eBay as well, even the genuine ones.

 

Never got a dock because I never needed to at the time. Now I have an external monitor and audio and plugging and unplugging twice a day is such a pain. Would a dock help? And do I still need a power plug too?

 

What's up dock? (haha lame joke)

Docks are great if you frequently connect/disconnect from a station with external LCD, keyboard, mouse, ethernet, etc. In your case Krane, yes a dock would be very helpful. Just plop it down on the dock and away you go. Plus it can give you your laptop LCD plus an external display for more screen real estate.

For the Dell Precision M6700 it's $152.99 with free shipping from Dell Accessories with this coupon code: RHTK180FC3S3VD

Comes with 240W power supply too.

 

Yes, it would, having a few USB devices, a second monitor and ethernet is few seconds away with the dock. Once you're done, push the eject button and put the laptop in the bag.