Ugreen 9-in-1 USB-C dock review: Terrific value, but BYO power supply

Price When Reviewed

$199.99

Best Prices Today: Ugreen 9-in-1 USB-C (Revodok) Docking Station CM615

$199.99

Ugreen’s 9-in-1 USB-C docking station is typical of the model: high quality design and manufacture, obtuse naming, and pricing that appears to range from one vendor to the following. Oh, and nowhere on this DisplayLink dock is any indication that it makes use of DisplayLink, both.

If you discovered the dock on Ugreen, the corporate calls it the “Ugreen 9-in-1 4k HDMI Fast Charge Universal Docking Station” and refers to its product quantity, 90912. On the field, the dock is named the “9-in-1 USB-C Docking Station (CM615).” Amazon calls it the “Revodok Pro.” eBay sellers, naturally, consult with it as one thing fully totally different. They’re all the identical dock, and it’s price looking it down.

Ugreen’s dock is a DisplayLink dock, which falls between the uncooked energy of a Thunderbolt dock and the price range worth of a USB-C dongle or hub. We think about them to be “tweener” units, straddling each classes, and so our DisplayLink opinions are likely to fall in each our list of the best Thunderbolt docks and the best USB-C dongles and hubs. (Ugreen appears to need to place this dock as a USB-C machine.) Put merely, a DisplayLink USB-C dock often delivers the capabilities of a Thunderbolt dock — or assist for 2 shows at 4K resolutions — at a lower cost.

What Ugreen doesn’t actually inform you on the field is that it’s a DisplayLink dock, and {that a} software program driver is necessary for the product to work. For that, you’ll must learn the handbook rigorously and obtain the driving force from Synaptics, the producer whose silicon powers the Ugreen dock itself. The documentation is there, but it surely’s poorly spelled out.

In this case, Ugreen’s dock compares favorably to one in all our favorites, the Plugable UD-6950PDH, with barely fewer ports however your selection of both a DisplayPort or HDMI connection. Put one other means, the dock permits two shows to be linked to it, and for every show you’ve the choice of utilizing both show connection. It’s extraordinarily useful, and avoids the necessity to purchase extra show cables.

Mark Hachman / IDG

On the entrance of the dock is each a legacy USB-A port in addition to a USB-C port, each 10Gbps. A small energy button lights when the dock is powered on, and linked — and a key omission is an influence brick. You’ll want to provide a USB-C charger your self, most likely one which your laptop computer makes use of already. The dock can settle for as much as 100W from the charger, however makes use of some itself. The result’s that your laptop computer might complain that it’s not getting sufficient energy. (Under our exams, the dock handed about 76 watts to the laptop computer from a 100W charger.)

Don’t count on the dock to energy a cellphone, both; the entrance USB-A port delivered no energy in any respect, and the entrance USB-C port delivered a comparatively paltry 2.5W or so. That will cost a cellphone, albeit slowly.

On the again of Ugreen’s dock is a gigabit Ethernet port, the 4 show ports (one DisplayPort and one HDMI port per show), plus a 10Gbps USB-C cable connecting the dock to your laptop computer. The different USB-C port is for charging solely. The USB-C cable between the dock and your laptop computer is about three toes, which was simply wonderful for my functions.

The dock is constructed from aluminum, and measures 7.9 x 4.5 x 2.1 inches, and simply over a pound. The dock does get fairly heat beneath load, even sizzling, although it didn’t have any issues sustaining a connection. There is passive venting on both facet of the dock to assist with cooling.

Mark Hachman / IDG

How does the Ugreen 9-in-1 USB-C Docking Station carry out?

DisplayLink docks are often exceptionally steady, with no flickering or sudden detachments from linked shows. Ugreen’s dock proved to be the identical.

The problem with DisplayLink docks is that solely a lot knowledge can move over a 10Gbps connection to and from the dock at anybody time. We carry out a number of exams to see how the dock performs beneath load.

For some cause, the dock carried out poorly after we first streamed a 4K video throughout Ethernet, dropping 671 frames out of 10,000. But the efficiency improved dramatically to only 62 frames dropped after we ranPCMark’s storage benchmark on an exterior SSD we connected — performing comparably after we tried a number of different streams simply in case a caching problem had improved the outcomes. Storage efficiency was fairly good, although, with the benchmark reporting 141Mbps and a rating of 917. (The SSD, when straight linked to the laptop computer, produced 161Mbps and a rating of 1,042.)

You can “break” the dock by pushing increasingly more over the connection. Playing again two 4K60 streams on both show whereas copying recordsdata from the SSD to the laptop computer triggered noticeable stuttering, however general the dock dealt with itself effectively. We wouldn’t count on that you’d carry out these duties in actual life.

Consider the actual fact the Ugreen dock is priced at between $129 and $139, and Plugable’s very comparable dock prices $199. Provided yow will discover one (!) Ugreen’s 9-in-1 dock is a strong funding.