Anker 577 Thunderbolt Docking Station (13-in-1, Thunderbolt 3) for Laptops, 85W Charging for Laptop, 18W Charging for Phones, 4K Dual Display, 10 Gbps USB-C Data, Ethernet, Audio, SD 4.0

Despite the product description, this works flawlessly with the M1 MacBook Air, the only shortfall being that the dual external display feature does not work for first generation M1 Macs - due to an inherent limitation on the MacBook’s side (it only supports the on-board display plus one 6K display according to Apple’s tech specs). I did call Anker support prior to the purchase but now I can confirm this first hand with my MacBook Air (2020) and 2K display which I’m using.Otherwise it’s sleek and precision built with very small footprint and works like a charm - I love it and easily prefer it over some other USB hubs I have tried. It has an anti-slip feature for vertical placement, so while I have no problem using it in horizontal position, it can slip around a bit if used in this position. The all-metal enclosure is designed to dissipate operating heat with radiator fins on both sides, so it does get considerably warm-hot. While it seems well within the design tolerances, that’s another reason you may wish to use it vertically so as not to obstruct the sides to the environment.It was well worth the rather high price tag - happy with the purchase.

A well-designed and well-built Thunderbolt docking station.The expense of such a Thunderbolt dock is NOT needed for many modern computers and laptops where cheaper USB 3 or USB 3.1 devices will meet common needs well.But this dock does a great job in extending the functionality of specific IT products. In particular, it can keep older Apple devices with built-in support for Thunderbolt but poor USB support genuinely useful for much longer than might be expected.An old 2011 iMac (High Sierra) with its still-nice display but dead internal boot drive becomes useful with modern peripherals including fast SSD drives. This generation of Apple computer only had USB 2 support so the Thunderbolt route was worth going down, allowing the purchase and use of cost-effective modern peripherals that can be re-used elsewhere when the iMac finally dies.Note that the dock DOES NOT provide the ability to boot High Sierra from a cheap external USB3 SSD. You can either boot such an elderly iMac direct from a Thunderbolt drive (Thunderbolt 2 or Thunderbolt 3 using an Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter), or from Firewire, or from the iMac's usb 2 bus. All are a decent upgrade from the original internal hard disk drive!Is the Anker dock recommended? It's a great dock of its type and has behaved flawlessly to its specifications. Well-built and not unreasonably hot in a well-ventilated room even charging up a laptop. Reasonably small - the brick-like power supply can probably be hidden below/behind your desk. Looks quite smart with Apple 'aluminium' computers in particular. Decent range of ports which all worked as specified in the item I bought.On a wider question, is an expensive Thunderbolt dock worthwhile? Yes, in particular cases the expense to extend the life of older equipment that otherwise meets all requirements is cost effective. In other cases, it might be better to simply buy current-generation computers that 'leap-frog' Thunderbolt 3 technology altogether. Depends on the relative costs and disruption to the user.Check the technical specs and think what you want to achieve.I and the user are happy. Minimal disruption to move to the Anker dock, and its fast external USB 3 data drives and Time Machine backup keep an elderly iMac pleasant to use until something else breaks!

I bought this for a macbook Air. Firstly, it runs *extremely* hot. After two years the ethernet port failed. From then on I have used a usb dongle which had the added benefit of boosting the wired ethernet speed.Four years later it has stopped supplying power although all the other connectivity is working.I wonder how long I have before it expires completely... this is not the quality I would expect from a £200 product.I should have bought the CalDigit... my friend got one around the same time and it is still working and doesn't get anywhere near as hot.

I bought this March 2021 when WFH was clearly here (in some form) to stay and beyond a couple of points it has been excellent. I use it almost daily for significant periods of time and it does what I need to do well. For work I've used it between 3-5 days a week (fewer now, more back in lockdown) for 8-10 hours a day and sometimes more. I've then also used it for home purposes most evenings for at least for an hour or two and occasionally good chunks of the weekend (either for home or work). So it is a really solid workhorse.For most of this period I have had it connected for work to a Lenovo X13, which has 1 Thunderbolt 3 port (connected to the laptop) and a spare USB-C (although see below re: second monitor). I have for the most part had a 27" BenQ 1440p monitor connected through the HDMI port and an ethernet lead into that port (running a 500mbps connection (with that speed working fine and consistently). Most of the USB-A ports on the back were used for peripherals (laptop and mouse also occasionally webcam and / or separate mic) and then the USB-C. The USB-A port on the front and the USB-C ports are good for plugging in various phones or other bits of equipment that need charging. All of this has worked absolutely fine for the whole time (1 proviso noted below about 1 USB-A port on the back). I should say that I use an Apple Magic Keyboard with the X13 connected with the standard apple lightning to USB-C cable plugged in to either one of the USB-C ports on the front or the one on the back and it recognises it instantly and works fine. The mouse is a Logitech MX Master 2S and connects via a bluetooth USB connector which sits happily in any of the various USB-A ports. The webcam was a standard Logitech 720 one which also goes in one of the USB-As more recently a Razer Kiyo. Not used the card slots as no need so unable to test them.Also during this period for home use I had it hooked up to a 13" MacBook Pro retina (so intel period) and more recently a 14" MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip. Most of the other peripherals stayed connected and all again worked seamlessly. For this use I probably run it a bit more hard on occasion - the odd video game played on the Mac whilst having twitch streams or you tube open in background and probably that's when the dock runs warmest. But otherwise works seamlessly with the Mac as well.Very recently I've got a second 27" screen (again a BenQ QHD with 60hz refresh rate) but this time with a USB-C output and also acting as a USB-A hub with 4 ports as well. Here's one slight niggle which I don't think is the dock's fault. I have the second screen connected to the dock via the USB-C port on the rear. The older screen stays connected via HDMI. So now when I hook the Mac up it is pretty much as before only now I'm driving the two screens via the dock (and in extended mode for those that are interested - the M1 and M2 Macs could only drive two screens in mirror mode but the M1 Pro lets you run in extended if the second screen is connected via USB-C). The peripherals I have plugged in to the new Monitor are also recognised and work well. So all good there. But the X13 just will not recognise the second screen via the dock - I have to unplug it and connect directly to the spare USB-C port on the laptop. It does mean that I've gone from being able to have everything connected via the dock and just switch in home and work laptops by disconnecting and reconnecting just the one thunderbolt lead, to needing to disconnect the second monitor lead and plug it in separately on the X13 as well. As I say, it works fine on the Mac I think it must just be an issue for the X13, which I've not yet worked out a solution for, rather than the dock but it's a bit irritating.Only other negatives are that one of the USB-A ports at the back stopped working after a few months. I should have tried to return / swap but as I just don't need that many ports it was difficult to work up the energy. And the dock does run hot - as I say above, more so when I'm running a lot of stuff on the Mac - but I don't think this is unusual. As I say, I've run it for many hours a day for most of the week over nearly 2 years without problems. The heat can be quite hot on occasion but I think this is par for the course for most of these types of docks. They just generate heat and, absent a fan, the dock releases that heat via conduction and the dock is designed to do that.So overall, with the one issue with the USB-A port that failed and the more recent problem connecting a second screen with the PC laptop (which I think is not the dock's 'fault', I am very happy indeed with performance and it is still running strong.