CalDigit TS4 Thunderbolt 4 Dock - 18 Ports, 98W Charging, 3x Thunderbolt 4 40Gb/s, 5 x USB-A, 3 x USB-C (10Gb/s), 2.5GbE, Single 8K or Dual 6K 60Hz Displays, Mac, PC, Chrome Compatible with 0.8m Cable

Worth every penny. I do professional photo & video work, as well as music production for fun. All of this on a MacBook Air M1 with 2 ports.[Slight ramble incoming - I've added some backstory in case others are in a similar predicament]I got sick of constantly juggling hard drives, devices and power cables, all with unreliable USB dongles/hubs that were *still* limited by ports and were prone to ejecting/cutting out randomly. A simple task like backing up one hard drive to another became an ordeal. Everything was becoming friction and it was hindering my work and efficiency.It got to the point I was considering spending £2.7k to upgrade my MacBook Air M1 to a Mac Studio M4. After a lot of back and forth, I realised I would be paying nearly £3k just to have more ports. Although an increase in performance would be great, I can still do my work with the machine I've got. An M1 Air is still incredibly capable for creative work.So I started shopping around for Thunderbolt hubs and narrowed it down to OWC's hub, as I have purchased gear from them before. They are expensive but high quality. However, after tentatively diving into Reddit, the CalDigit TS4 continually appeared as the recommendation over the OWC offering and others. After some digging into specs, their website, YouTube, etc, I took a punt at the CalDigit.At the time of writing this, the unit cost £360, which I would have said was an insane price to pay for a USB hub. I'm now ashamed I didn't fork up the money sooner, and it is worth every penny! It's COMPLETELY streamlined my workflow and saved me from needing to pay £££ for a new machine just to have more ports.The unit feels high quality, very Apple-like in its design, I haven't had a single issue with it so far. Some folk complain about it heating up - checking it now and it is definitely warm, but never worryingly hot. No different to a laptop that's running warm after heavy use.Devices currently plugged in:- Laptop hooked up via TB4- 4 separate external SSD drives- SATA USB Dock (which contains 2 SATA drives)- Focusrite Saffire audio interface- MIDI Keyboard- Monitor (Asus 27" ProArt)- CFexpress reader- Almost always have an SD + MicroSD card plugged in simultaneously- There's *still* spare ports for anything needing plugged in without removing something elseI can't stress enough how coming home, putting the laptop on the desk and plugging in ONE cable allows everything to be connected in its rightful place, hooked up to the monitor, all while powering the laptop and (if needed) there's still 1 more port free on the laptop.Combine this with the CalDigit Docking Station Utility - when I'm about to leave the house, I simply hit "Eject All", does what it's supposed to do, and I can walk away knowing everything is securely disconnected.Long story short, if you are a creative professional - get it. Not only are you streamlining and simplifying your workflow, you're future-proofing your setup. This hub can carry over to your next machine upgrade without worry about lack of ports.Amazing device.

I'm not sure why the documentation keep saying 60Hz, I've an Omen Dell 32" ultra wide wide the Displayport - I'm getting 165 Hz

I undertook a lot of research before buying this product to go with my MAC mini M4. I'm extremely happy with the product as it provides significant alternative ports to supplement the M4, which only has USB capability. As such, it allows me to plug-in a number of the previous peripherals such as a camera, microphone, external speaker system (jack plug). It also allows me to charge items such as my iPad and iPhone.

Writing after using the dock for three days, I must say that I am impressed.Machine: Macbook Pro 16 2019OS: Ventura 13.3.1I have been trying to find a dock that will allow me to run 2 monitors plus the laptop monitor in extended mode along with USB A, C and ethernet so this one seemed to fit the bill.The dock provides power to the laptop over USB C so does not use an extra power socket which is a nice feature. The dock sometimes runs warm but it is not hot. I was worried about this as I knew that I would be using virtually all of the ports on the rear of the dock and there were comments about it getting hot. This turned out not to be the case, warm yes, hot no.Dual monitors worked fine. I have one external 4K monitor and one Dell 2560 x 1440 resolution monitor. Both worked immediately. The 4K monitor runs from the Display port and the Dell uses HDMI from a USB-C to HDMI adapter. Both worked out of the box.Networking over ethernet runs quickly, I transferred 4.5 GB in less than a minute so it is no slouch.USB A and C both work fine including working with other external USB hubs.The only thing I would say is that it can take a few seconds to wake up from sleep. It does wake up it is just that it can take 3-4 seconds before the monitors are active. Personally I'm not too worried about this as my main requirement was the number of ports on the dock and the fact that they all work and they do.

Having had a TS3 previously, when I upgraded my MacBook Pro to Apple silicon I wanted to take benefit of Thunderbolt 4. All connected well and I have a Thunderbolt 3 monitor connected and displaying at 5K and a myriad of other accessories. The SD card slots and charging points on the front are very handy and I have mounted it under the desk which I much prefer (under the desk bracket available on Amazon), to hide the cables much better, and easy access for those charging points and SD cards. The power pack is a big lump, but I've managed to hide the at the rear of the desk in a cable tidy. The two main issues I have had is first, it produces a lot of heat, I tend to leave it on continually and I am concerned about the heat, but it's not caused any issues so far, but it niggles me. And further is that I have to invest in a different brand Thunder Bolt 4 expansion unit. I have an external Thunderbolt 4 drive and the speeds I was getting were just not what would be expected. I tried different ports etc but I wasn't blown away, with write speeds in the region of 1300Mb/s. When plugged directly into the Macbook, I was getting speeds in the region of 2600Mb/s, which was a lot more than what I was expecting. I have since brought the TB4 expansion dock and getting speeds in the region of 2400Mb/s. I do not doubt that it's due to having the monitor going through the TS4 as well, which has reduced the bandwidth, along with all the other accessories, but it does take away the nice scenario of having a one-stop choice. However, I don't regret buying the TS4, even at its rather expensive price, It has been pretty solid and keeps things tidy, but I'm not seeing that much of an upgrade from the TS3. My advice would be, to stick with the TS3 but I would recommend it as probably one of the best Thunder Bolt 4 docks available, but it's just not quite there yet.