Satechi USB 3.0 Universal Docking Station
There are plenty of USB hubs on the market right now, and most of them extend the connectivity of your PC by adding extra USB ports. This Satechi docking station, however, goes a step further and gives your computer almost all the connectivity that you could imagine for today’s computers. It provides you with extra monitor, ethernet, and USB connectivity and it does all of that without the need for any complicated hardware installation. Just connect your computer to this docking station though a single USB cable and , voila, you are ready to go.
The docking station is fairly large, much bigger than most USB hubs I’ve come across. It looks very well made and it is neatly designed. It fits well on most work desks and similar professional environments.
The setup was fairly straightforward. The docking station comes with a CD containing all of the drivers and other software. I’ve used it with my repurposed and heavily upgraded Windows 8.1 PC. All the drivers installed smoothly and I was able to use the docking station immediately. I had attached several peripherals to it: USB, keyboard, mouse, external hard drive, etc. All of them worked well and the speeds were consistent with the other USB 3 hubs that I had used it.
The most intriguing feature of this docking station, for me at least, was the ability to use it to connect to several additional monitors. My old PC only has a VGA output, and I was happy to finally be able to connect it to an HDMI enabled screen that I have in my office. The connection was really smooth and I didn’t have any issues with it.
One place where this docking station could prove particularly useful is with Windows tablet computers. I don’t have any of those myself (although I am planning on getting one in the near future), so I can’t speak from experience. However, since tablets that run full Windows 8.1 should be in principle the full-fledged PC computers, then all the drivers and support software should run on them. Tablets are notorious for their lack of ports, and any extension that can give them a boost and act as a USB hub in and of itself would be incredibly useful. This Satechi hub would be doubly so since it provides connectivity to virtually ALL the peripherals that you could imagine attaching: monitors, mice, keyboards, ethernet, etc. It could almost turn your tablet into a veritable desktop replacement.
Again, this is a very well designed and versatile product that would be of great use to anyone needing extra connectivity for their computer. Highly recommended.
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