Comment by wildzzz
10 hours ago
I use Dell Thunderbolt docks because that's what my employer gives us and as such I've collected a few of them. I've had zero issues with them. The only complaint is that the power button on the dock only seems to work with Dell laptops, not a huge issue since I don't think that's a typical feature anyway.
I don't know about yours but anything I've seen that works has a limited number of plugs on it. Keyboard and mouse and a USB hard drive and the occasional thumb drive... You are fine. The 7-port hub is a bad smell, like you can't plug 7 devices into a USB 3.0 bus due to undocumented limits.
But if you have that AND a USB bluetooth dongle, a USB ethernet adapter, USB DAC with SPDIF output you run into the "USB-C is best effort at best when you plug in a lot of devices" problem... Which never gets talked about, though if you talk to Copilot or Gemini about it they will tell you don't waste your time with USB 3.
I've got a Dell USB4 dock on my desk right now. It has generally had pretty good compatibility. The only complaint I really have about it is that it gatekeeps higher PD options behind proprietary signaling so while it can technically output higher than 60W nothing but a Dell device will properly unlock it.
This isn't usually a problem for most of my devices. My Thinkpads just alert me and say they're not charging at full speed, ending up negotiating something like 58W or so. Similar things with other devices. However, I've got one machine that will not even attempt to charge unless it definitely gets 20V/3.25A, which this dock just will not negotiate to for non-Dell devices.