Sonnet on Wednesday launched the Echo 11, a new Thunderbolt 3 dock geared primarily towards MacBook Pro owners.
The device uses its main Thunderbolt 3 port to supply a 40-gigbit data connection and up to 87 watts of power to connected laptops. The dock is further requipped with five USB 3.0 ports, individual HDMI 2.0, 3.5mm audio, and Gigabit Ethernet connections, plus a UHSII-compatible SD card reader. A second Thunderbolt 3 port enables daisy-chaining or hooking up peripherals like monitors.
Two of the USB ports are forward-facing, though only one is powered to charge devices like iPhones and iPads. Charging will continue even if a MacBook is disconnected.
Like similar docks, the Echo 11 can handle two 4K, 60Hz monitors, or a single 5K display. When using multiple monitors, one has to connect via HDMI while the other uses Thunderbolt.
Sonnet with Amazon is selling the Echo 11 for $299, with a single Thunderbolt 3 cable included.
13 Comments
Shipping a few dongles and expensive computers with a single connector, and in some cases a single data port, without offering a first-party hub is poor form on Apple’s part.
I find it sad that after several years of a commitment by Apple to USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 that there are no true USB-C hubs available. It's fine that there are options that give you USB-C to legacy ports but I would love to have a USB-C hub with 4 actual USB-C ports on it.
This dock suffers from an omission common on many such docks: no Micro SD card slot. I hate dealing with Micro SD-to-SD card adapters because they're easily misplaced. It's not like the cost would suffer much.
I just don't understand why manufacturers of these docks don't include all standard ports in the front. Sure, the legacy USB ports are great up front, but why omit the "standard" USBc ports? Is it asking too much to include even ONE USBc port in the front of the unit, in addition to a legacy USB port?