Looking for T450s users with Thinkpad Dock

I've been using X220 for many years with Ultra Series 3 dock, I never had a single problem with the doc, but reading the reviews of their new series docks (sadly newer *50 series are not compatible with older docks, no idea why they would this) have pretty bad reviews.

I am getting ready to order my T450s so any feedback & suggestion would be appreciated, including alternatives, if you returned the thinkpad for something else.

 

Anyone?

 

I don't have a T450s or a dock, but it's been my experience the docks are fairly low tech, so I don't know where you're seeing the poor reviews.

 

Poor reviews are in Amazon and Lenovo website. While they may look low tech, they are not that low tech, they manage to take a small serial-looking port and send pretty much everything, including 2 or 3 monitors, ethernet, 6 or more USB ports, audio ports, and do all switches on the fly without having to shut down, so I wouldn't really consider it low tech. If I remember correctly some of the negative reviews mentioned connection issues with keyboard and other USB devices as well as monitor switching issues. I never had anything with my old Thinkpad dock that I've been using for 4 years.

 

If you think of a dock as a pass-through for the notebook, then it is comparatively, a low tech part. Keep in mind people with a complaint tend to be much more vocal about things, which makes it seem a larger issue than it is in reality. Users like you, who didn't have a complaint in four years, rarely post everything's peachy.

 

I have the Ultra Dock 90W (40A20090US) and using it with t450s. I've been using it with t440s prior to getting the 450. (To my knowledge any dock that was compatible with t440s will also work with t450s as there was not any major changes done). I didn't experience any problems with it, it's been working like it should and I'm happy with it.
I have two dell ultrasharp monitors connected to it - a 24 inch via hdmi and 18 inch via VGA, so with a laptop in a dock, I have a 3 screens setup. The only other thing that is always connected to the dock is a LAN cable. I did use USB a few times and it worked with no issue.
I have my desktop connected to the two monitors other inputs and sometimes when I switch the input on the 24 inch monitor from hdmi (laptop/dock) to display port for desktop the resolution gets changed on the monitor and the only way to change it back is to reboot the desktop. I do believe it is a monitor/desktop issue, not the laptop/dock though.
So overall the dock keeps me happy so far. Can't say the same for the Lenovo warranty service. My t450s developed sudden reboots/shutdowns and after purchasing Next Business Day onsite service, I find out that the Next Business Day does not mean the tech will show up the next business day, but it may be whatever number of days, depending on parts avaibility. So the NBD is just a fancy name to encourage people to shell some extra dollars thinking they get a fast service... ehh..