Thinkpad docking station questions

Hello all I am a first time Lenovo owner (t450s) (technically this is my second one as I had a corporate issued one with corporate issued docking station, but never paid attention to it as it was short term)

I am looking at purchasing the lenovo ultra docking station but can't figure out or find out online what the difference between the ultra and the pro is.

I see a lot of mixed reviews on these docking stations, causing errors and not working as intended. Is there a better alternative?

I plan on running this at my office with a dual monitor setup/ wireless keyboard-mouse combo/ ethernet plugged into the docking station so it would be nice on a daily basis to have a viable and sound solution.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

Probably not, but I would take the complaints with a grain of salt. People with a complaint tend to be more vocal, which makes it seem a larger problem than it is in reality. The reviews you see online people tend to love or hate it, but you don't get many well thought out reviews discussing the pros and cons cause those people , who are the majority, aren't as motivated to write a review as those who love or hate it. My experience with the docks is they're pretty simple products and I never had a problem with one, though I've not used one since the T4x says. If you buy one you'd have a year of support while things shake out and could always return it if it's terrible.

 

Thanks. Know the diffeence on the ultra vs pro model?

 

I have the Ultra Dock and am very happy with it, use it every day...

From the specs on Lenovo's site, it appears the Ultra Dock as 3 more USB ports (2.0) for a total of 6. It also has HDMI and 2 DisplayPort connectors versus 1 for the Pro.

I also have the best thing since sliced bread, one of those surge strips where there's a "master" outlet and then 6 other outlets, so when power is turned off to the master, all the other outlets turn off as well. So I have the AC Adapter from my Dock plugged into the "master", and then my monitors, speakers, printer, etc. plugged into the other outlets and as soon as I undock my laptop, everything shuts off for me and when I dock the laptop everything turns on. Super convenient!!

 

Nice. Thanks! I will go with Ultra. Link to one of those power strips? I like the sound of that.

 

This is kind of like mine...

http://www.amazon.com/TrickleStar-A...&sr=1-7&keywords=outlet+master+outlet+control

You have a Master that controls the 6 slave outlets and then a few that can be always on for those things you don't want to turn off. If I had to turn off/on everything connected "every" time I docked/undocked I would like the dock a lot less

I justify the price by saving energy and heating my office less...

 

Also, with regards to the Ultra and the extra ports, they add up fast.

I have my 2 monitors plugged in
Speakers
Network cable
DVD Drive
External 2gb Drive
Keyboard (Lenovo with Trackpoint of course)
Wacom Tablet
Label Printer
iPhone/iPad Cable

So I have 6 ports taken up easily without needing to get another USB Hub. Then for other stuff I just plug directly into the laptop ports for the ad-hoc stuff.

I've been using the docks for years, and sure there are the occasional glitch (I've maybe had 2 in my lifetime with them) they are really useful if you want the desktop experience with grab and go functionality.

Windows is also really good about remembering all of my screen settings / display positions so that when I dock, everything changes to my docked layout and when I undock, it changes right back.

 

Have you ever tried driving three external monitors at once (with the thinkpad closed)? Right now I use a T530 plugged into a dock and I have three external monitors connected... two via DVI and one on VGA. I always keep the thinkpad closed when it's in the dock, so it's driving three total screens. It works pretty much ok, except about half the time I dock the machine and start it up it only starts on the VGA-connected monitor and I have to go into display settings to re-enable the other two. Also, the contrast on the VGA-connected display isn't great, but I think this is just a poor VGA implementation in the T530 (I get the same sort of poor contrast when I connect a projector to the VGA port).

I think the T450s is also supposed to be able to drive three screen total - I'm just not sure if they can all be external.

 

I came back to my thread after reading or skimming through amazon reviews and seeing this thread

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T...-external-display-issues/td-p/1368847/page/33

people having issues with their docks and multiple monitors flickering...trying update of firmwares and upgrading their power supplies.

is this not a common issue on the t450s? as I see people still have issues with this up until the end of april of 2015 with no resolution.

 

the ultra dock you have is the 90w?

 

I have the 170w model and did the firmware update many months ago, I dont't have any issues with it but I don't do anything fancy either

 

and running that with which laptop is it the t450s? not sure which model to go for...either the 90w or 170w now.