Ugreen USB-C Triple Display dock review: A diamond in the rough

Price When Reviewed

$329.99

Best Prices Today: Ugreen USB-C Triple Display Docking Station

The most complicated factor concerning the Ugreen USB-C Triple Display Docking Station is its title—as a result of, inexplicably, it doesn’t match what’s on the field. Although its engineering is great, whoever orchestrated its advertising and marketing and help wants a talking-to.

Stay with us for a second. On Ugreen’s web site (and Amazon) this dock is called the Ugreen USB-C Triple Display Docking Station (12-in-1), and that’s what we’ve chosen to determine it as. Ugreen’s precise field, nevertheless, labels it because the USB-C Multifunction Docking Station PRO (Model CM555), as proven above. However, a hyperlink inside the CM555’s documentation directs you to the “Triple Display” Ugreen link, which price $329.99 at press time. (Amazon’s value is a bit much less.) It will get stranger: The Ugreen web site additionally incorporates a “2023 Recommend Docking Station” with a “Christmas discount” within the URL, which seems to be precisely the identical dock—but $90 cheaper.

The driver hyperlink additionally hints at one thing Ugreen doesn’t let you know: that this can be a DisplayLink USB-C dock, which makes use of compression software program to facilitate the interface.

This isn’t a foul factor; as we’ve seen with DisplayHyperlink docks, these can be cheaper, stabler options that supply nearly every part {that a} true Thunderbolt dock does. Here, the value pushes into conventional Thunderbolt dock territory, however with mainly all the options of a Thunderbolt dock, and with out needing a Thunderbolt port in your laptop computer — only a extra generic USB-C interface.

This evaluate informs our checklist of the best USB-C hubs and dongles, which incorporates shopping for suggestions and recommendation.

Ugreen is a Shenzhen firm, the Chinese startup hub that homes seemingly a whole lot of small corporations that develop I/O peripherals. As such, typically the businesses have a tendency to chop corners. The drivers are one instance: You’ll have to obtain and set up the DisplayHyperlink software program earlier than utilizing the dock, however Ugreen buries point out of it on its product web page and provides it by way of MediaFire, a third-party internet hosting service. If this provides you the heebie-jeebies, strive downloading the official DisplayLink drivers from DisplayHyperlink’s house owners, Synaptics, as a substitute.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Another instance of reduce corners is the charger. Ugreen’s Triple Display Docking Station can present as much as 100W to your laptop computer, however you’ll want to supply the charger itself. Virtually all powered docks ship with an influence brick, however this one doesn’t.

With a couple of USB-C-powered laptops already across the workplace, this wasn’t an issue. But for those who’re working with a gaming laptop computer that makes use of a barrel charger, you’re going to be ticked off whenever you uncover that you just’ll have to put money into a USB-C charger, too. On the flip aspect, for those who already personal a compact 100W GaaN charger, you win. If you don’t, Amazon bundles the two together for $309.99, which looks as if an honest compromise.

That issues, because the Ugreen USB-C Triple Docking Station is remarkably compact so far as docks go: about 5 inches tall by 2.5 inches deep by about 2 inches broad. The aluminum and plastic body weighs about 0.22 kilos, and doesn’t get overly scorching underneath load. This is an answer that may work on the highway, offered you personal a charger.

On stability, although, Ugreen’s dock is a pleasure to work with, from the small pointless (however welcome) energy button and LED on the highest of the unit to assorted variety of ports to work with. On the entrance of the dock, Ugreen consists of each a microSD/TF and a full-sized SD card slot, alongside each a 10Gbps USB-C slot and a 10Gbps USB-A slot. A headphone jack is there, too.

On the rear of the dock, Ugreen consists of two 5Gbps USB-A slots for legacy mice and wired keyboards, the 10Gbps USB-C hyperlink to your laptop computer, and the USB-C charger enter. There are additionally three show ports: a 4K/60Hz-capable HDMI port, a equally configured DisplayPort, and an HDMI port able to 8K at 30Hz. (Ugreen doesn’t present actual specs.)

DisplayHyperlink docks are terrific for productiveness: They’ll energy a pair of 4K shows at an eye-pleasing 60Hz simply fantastic. What they usually don’t venture are any HDR capabilities, even when the show helps them. (Trying to allow HDR brought on one check show to show off.) They additionally don’t usually energy high-refresh-rate shows. However, the “8K” port does put out sufficient bandwidth for a 1440p show at 144Hz, Ugreen says, which pushes into gaming eventualities.

Mark Hachman / IDG

How does the Ugreen USB-C Triple Display Dock carry out?

The downside with USB-C docks is that the bandwidth you’ll see could be depending on the dock, your laptop computer’s ports, and the out there GPU—and most distributors don’t hassle breaking that down. On a Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio with Thunderbolt capabilities, Ugreen’s dock drove three separate shows concurrently: the interior laptop computer show, two 4K shows operating at 60Hz, and a widescreen 1440p show able to 144Hz, although at solely 100Hz. We discovered that to even be the case for an HP Victus laptop computer with a discrete GPU, a Surface Laptop 4 (Ryzen), and a Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360. (The Surface Laptop Studio and Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 embody Thunderbolt ports; the opposite two laptops don’t.)

Under every situation, the dock carried out very nicely, offered that the laptops put in the correct DisplayHyperlink drivers. (If you don’t, the show output will stutter.) But they’re not miracle employees, both: With the three exterior shows every operating 4K streamed movies, the video started “surging”: taking part in video at regular pace, then slowing down a bit, although noticeably. It didn’t ship sufficient energy to entry an exterior SSD, and when streaming video from an exterior exhausting drive together with the streamed video, every part slowed down noticeably.

Still, taking part in all of that again over a normal 10Gbps USB-C connection was a superb expertise. Remember that working in Word, Outlook, or in Edge or Chrome will put much less stress on this Ugreen dock, and it ought to carry out even higher.

Ugreen doesn’t particularly name out any of the ports for charging functions, however all the USB-A ports ship 3.7W—not nice, however typical of comparable docks. The front-mounted USB-C port does higher: 7.8W, which is sufficient to cost a smartphone, although not fast-charge it.

Ugreen’s USB-C Triple Display Docking Station undoubtedly has some actually odd quirks, reduce corners, and different foibles. It’s additionally fairly costly, too, particularly since you need to provide a charger. We couldn’t discover any guarantee data, both. However, if you may get previous the naming confusion and unearth the correct driver, this USB-C dock undoubtedly delivers.