Anker577 Docking Station (13-in-1, Thunderbolt 3) 85W Charging for Laptop, 18W for Phones, 4K Dual Display, 10 Gbps USB-C Data, Ethernet, Audio, SD 4.0

Dateline: A Desk Drowning in a Sea of Wires, 1:08 AM. In the savage jungle of the modern workspace, the enemy is chaos. It’s a creeping, insidious tangle of power bricks, dongles, and adapters—a Medusa’s head of plastic and copper that strangles your productivity and frays your last nerve. You need a central nervous system. You need a master plan. You need a single, elegant brick of pure, unadulterated connectivity that can bring order to the madness.Enter the Anker 577 Docking Station. It doesn’t swagger; it sits. A dense, cool, metallic slab that feels less like a computer accessory and more like a mysterious artifact from a more advanced civilization. The name is modest, but the specs are a declaration of total war on clutter: 13-in-1. Thirteen ports. A veritable hydra of high-speed potential, ready to absorb every peripheral you can throw at it.But the real magic, the sacred covenant of this device, is the single Thunderbolt 3 cable. This is the One Cable to Rule Them All. You plug this solitary, elegant cord into your laptop, and the world changes. Suddenly, you have a firehose of 85-watt power flowing into your machine, keeping it juiced for the long haul. Simultaneously, your dual 4K monitors blink to life, a sprawling digital vista that makes a single laptop screen feel like peering through a keyhole. Your keyboard, your mouse, your external hard drive, your ethernet cable—everything connects to the dock, leaving your desk a landscape of Zen-like simplicity.It’s a revolution. A single act of connection that replaces a frantic, multi-step ritual of plugging and unplugging half a dozen different things. The Anker 577 becomes the brain stem, the central hub through which all data flows. And it flows fast. We’re talking 10 Gbps data transfers, an SD card reader that inhales photos like a starving man at a banquet, and a dedicated 18W port on the front to keep your phone topped off while you work.And here’s the kicker, the part that makes this whole proposition verge on the surreal: the price. In the rarefied air of "real" Thunderbolt docks—a market full of high-priced gatekeepers and extortion-level fees—the Anker 577 stands as a monument to common sense. It delivers the same face-melting performance and connectivity as its far more expensive rivals without demanding you take out a second mortgage. It’s the smart money, the thinking man’s choice, a subversive act of pure, high-tech value.This is not just a docking station. It is a declaration of independence. Independence from clutter, from dongles, from the tyranny of a thousand different chargers. It has taken the chaotic, multi-pronged assault of modern peripherals and funneled it into a single, elegant, and shockingly powerful solution. It doesn’t just clean up your desk; it cleans up your workflow, leaving you with nothing to focus on but the work itself. And in the dead of night, when the deadlines are closing in, that kind of clarity is priceless.

The Good: A small thunderbolt 3 dock by Anker. The concept of a small dock seems to be mostly avoided but has been tackled by Anker in a good looking, compact package.The Bad: Poor description of specifications for the dock make it hard to find out if this is a good solution for you.The bottom Line: While it is hard to check if this product is for you, this is a Thunderbolt 3 hub with the Anker badge on it. If it doesn't fit your needs, its easy to return. If it breaks (within warranty), top notch customer service will care for you.What comes in the box:The dockA Thundebolt 3 USB C cable (Interfaces with dock and Thunderbolt device)A power brick (Interfaces with dock and power cable)A Power cable (Interfaces with outlet and power brick)The number one thing that has kept me from purchasing a Thunderbolt 3 hub is the lack of reliability, compatibility, or longevity that tends to be associated with this technology. We all have setups of varying complexity and I am hoping this helps someone with similar needs as mine.For starters, from the instruction manual, these are the listed ports and some specs:Front Pannel1. SD 4.0 Card Slot2. Micro SD Card Slot3. Top USBC 10GB/s, 5V/0.9A (4W)4. Bottom USBC 10GB/s, 5V/3A (15W), 9V/2A (18W)5. 3.5mm Jack6. USBA 5GB/s, 5V/1.5A (7.5W)Back Pannel1. Top, USBC Thunderbolt 3 port, Downstream 5V/3A max, daisy chain up to 5 devices.2. Bottom, USBC Thunderbolt 3 port, Upstream [5V/3A (15W), 9V/3A(27W), 15V/3A (45W), 20V/4.25A (85W)]3. HDMI 2.0 4k604. 3x USBA 5B/s5. Ethernet 10/100/1000 MbpsSpeed: 40 GB/sInput: 20V/9A (180W)Compatable with OSX and WinOS4.9 x 3.5, 1.6 in; 17.3Oz125.8 x 88.5 x 41.9 mm; 490gContext: 61W draw from a MacBook Pro, 2560 x 1440 monitor, mechanical keyboard, occasional SD card, 3.5mm Jack, USBC charge usage, USBA peripheral/storage use.Some things I have noticed regarding front panel ports:The most interesting thing comes in the form of the top (3) and bottom (4) USBC outs. They both have the same data rate, however, the power provided is different. If you want to charge your device, use the bottom USBC port and a cable capable of handling the power delivery.Using the 3.5mm Jack (5) means that you have to switch your output device. This is something that must be specified in your OS and had to learn about mid zoom meeting.Some things I have noticed regarding back panel ports:If you are using the downstream (1) port, make sure your device is actually making use of the Thunderbolt protocol, otherwise, this will only work at USB 2.0 data speeds, effectively invalidating the reason for purchasing this dock. I used this port for my USBC to Display port connection and it works flawlessly.The power draw from the upstream (2) port is probably using the 45W protocol since my device is limited to 61W charging. However, my usage does not seem to prevent my device from charging faster than it discharges.The USBA ports (4) do not have a power rating associated with them. However, they supply enough power to run my mechanical keyboard with backlight without issue.The ethernet (5) connector is Gigabit. The connector does not have any specifications attached to it for Power over Ethernet (PoE) or any kind of IEEE 802.3 apart from speeds achievable.Overall, this is a great Thunderbolt hub for a simple user like myself and I hope that it remains simple as I add more monitors in the future. I enjoy the convenience and simplicity of the hub and how plug and play my computer has become. I also like the small footprint of the dock, taking minimal desk space especially compared with those large hubs that seem to have a horizontal support. I will make an effort to update this as things pop and longevity milestones are hit.

This does what it says on the tin. I've been using it to swap between my M1 Mac and Linux laptop with a single USB-C cable. It runs both of my monitors. One over USB-C at 4k, the other over HDMI in 1080p. The wired ethernet port and USB-A ports all work well. I also have a USB 3 hub plugged into one of the USB-A ports which functions as it should. It supplies adequate charging. Everything works on both my Mac and Linux machine.Some things to know going in:- It will not just work when you plug it in. Both MacOS and Linux will require you to authorize a new Thunderbolt accessory. MacOS likes to hide this under other active windows so it's easy to miss. To make this more aggravating the hub will "kind of" work without needing authorization. So your monitors will come on and your machine will charge, but neither the wired network or your USB accessories will work. When this happens to you make sure to find that authorization prompt and authorize the device. This isn't Anker's fault, it's just how MacOS/Linux are.- It gets hot, fast. You need to put a small fan near it to blow cool air across it. Heat kills electronics. IMO this is why so many of these devices end up dead inside 30 days. This thing has no active cooling or fans of any kind. It needs them.Overall I'm happy with it. It performs as advertised. I wish it had a built in fan.