CA Essential Docking Station (DS2000) review: A swing and a miss

Price When Reviewed

$159.99

Best Prices Today: Cyber Acoustics (CA) Essential Docking Station (DS2000)

$130.00

$136.49

The Computer Associates Essential Docking Station (DS2000) is without doubt one of the extra uncommon USB-C docking stations you should buy: an extended, slim slab of steel that crouches beneath your laptop computer. Why? Because of a built-in laptop computer fan of doubtful worth.

The DS2000 is a powered, conventional USB-C dock. There aren’t any hidden DisplayLink chips inside it to permit it to entry a pair of 4K shows. Instead, it seems to function equally to its sister dock, the DS1000 that we reviewed earlier this 12 months. That dock takes benefit of a expertise that may be present in some latest laptops — what’s often called HBR3 with DSC — to permit the dock to a pair of high-resolution shows. We had a lot much less success with the DS2000, and located that it appeared to work finest with a single exterior show.

The CA DS2000 consists of two show ports on the rear of the system: one HDMI connection, and a second DisplayPort connection. There’s additionally a gigabit Ethernet connection, three 10Gbps USB-A ports on the again, and a slower 5Gbps USB-A port on the aspect of the dock. A Kensington Ok-slot lock is included, too.

The dock itself is lengthy and lean: 13.6 inches by 3.2 inches, with a 0.7-inch lip that slopes right down to 0.3 inches in entrance. Weirdly, CA affixed the USB-C cable to the dock, so it might’t be eliminated. (That may be a plus, if you happen to’re anxious about dropping it.)

While I used to be in a position to join our check laptop computer to 2 shows, just one delivered full decision. I linked the HDMI port to a 1440p widescreen show, able to 144Hz, and solely acquired a 1440p/60Hz connection. A second 4K show wouldn’t render above 1080p, at 60Hz. I noticed the identical outcome connecting a 4K show; producing 4K output on one and 1080p on the opposite. When I disconnected and reconnected the shows, the 4K show rendered at 1440p, and the 1440p show compressed every thing to a slender band.

Mark Hachman / IDG

CA claims that the dock will produce 4K30 output on two shows, and perhaps it’ll; Windows, nevertheless, wouldn’t let me “dial down” my refresh price to 30Hz to strive splitting the distinction. But chances are you’ll discover that that is basically a dock that’s solely able to a single show output, both 1440p at 60Hz or 4K at 30Hz. That works simply high-quality.

That’s not terribly dangerous, particularly with the DS2000’s value. Our checklist of the best USB-C hubs, dongles, and docking stations reveals that the DS2000’s value matches in effectively above a standard dongle, however beneath the value of a USB-C docking station or DisplayLink dock.

CA Essential Docking Station (DS2000) efficiency

The one bizarre characteristic that this dock presents is a quasi-laptop fan. Most laptops pull cool air from beneath the laptop computer, route it over the CPU and SSD, and vent it out by way of the rear hinge and sides. If that’s the way in which your laptop computer works, than putting it atop the docking station could assist. A small button means that you can choose from three totally different fan speeds, sucking in air from the rear of the laptop computer and “feeding” it to the place these backside vents may be. You can even flip off the fan fully.

In idea, it’s not dangerous. In actuality, the fan appears underpowered — most likely good if you happen to don’t need quite a lot of fan noise. One check laptop computer I take advantage of has side-mounted vents, making the CA2000 ineffective. The different does have backside vents, however the fan didn’t appear to do a lot. I ran a couple of iterations of 3DMark, a benchmark that mixes the CPU and GPU and calls for the utmost energy {that a} laptop computer can present. But the fan didn’t appear to be efficient; in a single iteration, the turning the fan on improved efficiency (5,860 to 6,015). In one other, efficiency fell from 5,478 to 5,346. A 3rd run generated almost equal outcomes, giving a slight edge to the fan.

Mark Hachman / IDG

There’s no option to safe the laptop computer on the dock, both, that means that it would slide round. It all appears to be an excessive amount of hassle for any actual profit.

Performance is suitable, assuming you contemplate this dock to essentially solely energy a single show. Streaming a 4K60 video was simply high-quality with none dropped frames; over the 1440p show, the viewport (transferred video) was at 1440p.

Over a single linked 4K show, nevertheless, the expertise was horrendous. Not solely was the show refresh price simply 30Hz, however streamed video was terrible: 4,233 or 10,000 frames had been dropped, making the video jerk and stumble in all places.

The dock’s storage efficiency was excellent, nevertheless, with the dock producing a rating of 147.22MB/s, and a rating of 950. (Rival USB-C docks common about 140MB/s and 920 or so.) PCMark measures storage exercise throughout the bus; in a second check, we copied a folder of recordsdata driectly from the SSD to the PC’s desktop. That took simply 1 minute and 4 seconds, in comparison with 1 minute and 1 second whereas the SSD was instantly connected.

According to our measurements, the dock transferred about 64W of energy to our check laptop computer. The USB-A ports on the rear provide 2.58W, which is simply sufficient to usually cost a smartphone.

Even with the lower cost, we don’t assume that there’s sufficient right here to justify a purchase order; the fan is simply too gimmicky, and the dock configuration is awkward, too. We’d suggest that you simply contemplate spending a bit extra for one in all our beneficial DisplayLink docks or just strive a dramatically cheaper USB-C dongle as a substitute.