Club3D USB 3.0 Ultra Smart Docking Station Review
Bohs Hansen / 8 years ago
A Closer Look
It is time to take a closer look at this impressive docking station. The top features a very simplistic print with the description of each port. While this looks really great, it might also be the only small downside to this docking station as it can be difficult to read in bad lighting. Then again, the ports are more or less self-explanatory and you don’t need much text to know what is what.
With that out the way, let’s have a look at the ports. All the way to the left side, looking from the rear, we have the uplink port to our laptop. I like the use of a Type-A port for this as it gives both the port and the cable more stability and there is less chance that you break either. Next to it is the power connector for the PSU followed by the five USB 3.0 ports for your drives, peripherals, and other USB devices.
Moving further to the right and following the USB ports, we find the three monitor connectors that allow you to connect pretty much any generation of monitor, from old to new. There’s a DVI-D, a D-Sub, and an HDMI port from which we can use either two simultaneously.
Last but not least, we have the microphone and headphone ports and the Gigabit Ethernet LAN port.
On one end of the docking station, we find the memory card reader which is a great bonus. Portable system users quite often work with photo and video devices too, not to mention all the mobile phones and tablets that use memory cards that most of us have, and your laptop might not have a card reader built in. This way you don’t need any extra devices connected over USB either as it’s all built directly into the docking station. Overall, a really complete solution.
On the other end, we find another really cool feature that I love, although it’s really a simple one: a power button. This allows you to turn the docking station on and off instead of having to unplug it from the laptop. There’s also a small button-hole reset button in case it should ever lock itself up. You most likely never need this, but it is great to have should it happen.
The power adapter will fit the region where you purchased it and in this instance, it is a 2-pin one that can deliver 12V and 3A.
The included USB 3.0 cable features type-A ports on both ends and generally it’s a sturdy cable that easily should last the lifetime of the device without you ever having to worry about replacing it.
