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    T500 docking station: Advanced Dock or Advanced Mini-Dock?

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by asincero, Mar 20, 2010.

  1. asincero

    asincero Notebook Enthusiast

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    Even though the Advanced Dock has been discontinued by Lenovo, you can still get one from eBay and other places. My question is the extra cost of the Advanced Dock worth it over the Mini-Dock? The only thing I find interesting about the Advanced Dock is the ability to use a pci-e video card so you can potentially use up to 4 monitors.

    But how well does this capability work in practice? I need to be able to dock and undock at will. I once had a Dell laptop with a docking station that allowed you to plug in ordinary PCI video cards too. In actual usage, it didn't really work as seamlessly as I'd like. I recall regularly having to shutdown the laptop completely rather than just undock the thing.

    The Mini-Dock can be as cheap as $100. Advanced Dock is at least $200. Which one to get?
     
    asincero, Mar 20, 2010
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  2. Iron Eagle

    Iron Eagle Notebook Evangelist

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    I use an Advanced Mini Dock with my T400 and got it for around $50 on eBay. It suits me well as I use its DVI port to connect to my screen. I THINK the Advanced Dock has a DisplayPort port, which would have been nicer, but it's not absolutely necessary for me.
     
    Iron Eagle, Mar 20, 2010
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