Roger Fingas
OWC on Tuesday announced a new 14-port version of its Thunderbolt 3 Dock designed to be more convenient than its predecessor with two card readers, and a wider array of modern ports for users than previous versions.
Upgrades include a front-facing 10-gigabit USB-C port, capable of 15 watts of power delivery. That's enough to charge iPhones, iPads, and other compatible mobile devices.
The front also offers separate SD and microSD slots with support for the SD Express format, which can handle speeds up to 985 megabytes per second, and storage up to 128 terabytes.
On the back are two Thunderbolt 3 connections. One of these is a powered port able to supply as much as 85 watts, more than enough for a MacBook Pro.
Other connections options include five USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, S/PDIF audio out, a gigabit Ethernet jack, and Mini DisplayPort 1.2 capable of connecting a display at 4K resolution with a 60Hz refresh rate. The FireWire 800 port has been removed in this version of the dock, however.
Preorders of the 14-port dock are now underway for $299. Space gray and silver models should ship in the next few weeks.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
33 Comments
It would be nice if we could easily buy USB C gen 3.1 ver 2 cables for 10Gbs transfer. You really have to be careful buying these cables. Some of the shorter ones are gen 1, with 5Gbs transfer. But the longer ones seem to be high speed charging (they will say that), but only built to usb 2 data standards, meaning just 480Mbs speeds. Often it will say USB C 2. You may think that means 3.1 gen 2, but it means usb 2.
i don’t know what the problem is.
I'm surprised that TB cables longer than 0.5m (around 20 inches) don't generally support USB Type C 3.1, but luckily I haven't needed anything longer than that so far. I hope manufacturers will start making cables for both USB-C and TB3 that support at least the USB Type C 3.2 standard so that no matter what kind of cable you buy, you're getting at least the full 10Gbps of USB-C 3.1 most recent computer users have. There's really no excuse for TB-compatible cables not to support full USB-C specs.
This is about as complete as it would be to satisfy me. I'm surprised it took this long to include a USBc port on front and an SD-card slot. I would buy this. If I had one small gripe, it's that they didn't include additional USBc ports on the back. I understand that TB3 is also USBc, but there will come a day where our cables will all be USBc and it would be nice if this could accommodate that. It's nitpicking though.