Wavlink Thunderbolt 4 Dock (UTD45) review: Lovely yet quirky

Price When Reviewed

$199.99

Best Prices Today: Wavlink Thunderbolt 4 Triple Display Docking Station

Wavlink’s Thunderbolt 4 Triple Display Docking Station (UTD-45) delivers a mix of highs and lows, averaging out to a good expertise general. You can see the care that was put into its well-crafted design…with a couple of glitches. In common, although, I can’t assist rooting for this Thunderbolt dock, even when I can’t completely suggest it.

My experiences with this dock had been typically good. I had beforehand listed Wavlink’s UTD-45 amongst our suggestions for the best Thunderbolt laptop docking stations based mostly on a review by our sister website, Macworld. Put merely, this dock gives entry to 3 totally different shows by way of a well-thought-out (and well-labeled) mixture of legacy ports.

After reviewing the UTD-45 personally, nevertheless, I’m much less impressed.

To be truthful, Wavlink’s UTD-45 laptop computer docking station is primarily offered via Amazon — and that listing might have been shared with different Wavlink docks that the producer additionally offered by way of the identical web page. Customers there complain that the UTD-45 had issues enjoying again video and that the dock turned fairly sizzling to the contact beneath load. I didn’t expertise both challenge in any respect.

Wavlink’s Thunderbolt 4 Triple Display Docking Station (UTD-45) measures 8.5 inches lengthy by 3.5 inches deep and about an inch excessive, with venting on both finish. It weighs about 1.2 kilos. While the dock is manufactured from ABS plus aluminum alloy, the dock can also be properly ventilated at both finish, with a second small vent operating across the periphery of the dock. While all of that air flow retains the dock good and funky beneath load, it does forestall the UTD-45 from being oriented vertically to avoid wasting house.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Wavlink describes every port’s throughput on the entrance of the dock with a outstanding label, and sums them up inside a downloadable handbook, two options that I wish to see. Wavlink even lists the ports’ energy capabilities, all of which warms my nerdy little coronary heart. In addition to the audio jack and LED-lit energy button, the UTD-45 consists of an SD/microSD 4.0 (312MB/s) card slot, a 10Gbps USB-C port able to 30W, a generic 10Gbps USB-A port, and a Thunderbolt 4 host port able to 96W of energy supply. A 31-inch cable connects the dock to the laptop computer, which permits me to place the dock on both aspect of the laptop computer and nonetheless snake the cable round.

On the rear, Wavlink consists of two HDMI 2.1 ports, an upstream Thunderbolt 4 port that provides 15W of energy, plus a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port. There are additionally three labeled USB-A ports, two enabling 5Gbps and one that may switch 10Gbps value of information.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Note that the Thunderbolt protocol solely permits for a laptop computer to connect with two 4K60 shows. This dock lets you join a 3rd show by way of Thunderbolt, however solely by way of a laptop computer with DisplayPort 1.4 and Display Stream Compression. That’s enabled with most discrete GPUs and built-in GPUs in laptops with 13th-gen Core chips and their AMD counterparts. DSC additionally permits this dock to output 8K at 60Hz over one of many HDMI ports, however I don’t check this as a result of 8K shows are almost unimaginable to search out.

Most docks are plug-and-play, and the Wavlink UTD-45 is not any exception. However, Wavlink does provide a downloadable driver that the corporate says needs to be used if downloads over Ethernet appear slower than anticipated. In my checks, downloading and making use of the motive force truly dropped obtain speeds by about 58Mbps — although the outcomes of velocity testing are topic to varied components, resembling native community or WWAN congestion. That might have affected its storage efficiency, too.

How does the Wavlink Thunderbolt 4 UTD-45 carry out?

I had a couple of points with the Wavlink UTD-45. First, there have been typically delays connecting to varied shows. I typically wanted to disconnect and reconnect the Thunderbolt 4 cable and even reboot now and again. It additionally appeared to be a bit finicky whereas rebooting or bringing the laptop computer again up from a sleep state, and I sometimes eliminated and reinserted the cable to assist it alongside. Once related, this dock was completely secure — and since I began testing it over the vacations, I spent extra time with it than regular.

Mark Hachman / IDG

There had been by no means any thermal issues in any respect, and the dock remained a lot cooler than some others I’ve examined.

At one level, nevertheless, the Ethernet jack merely stopped working. That was a bit odd, on condition that I’d already downloaded and put in the motive force that was supposed to unravel any Ethernet issues. The outage persevered till I powered the dock — not the laptop computer — on and off. That solved the issue.

The dock’s energy supply was typically wonderful. The well-labeled ports delivered just about what they had been imagined to: a hefty 28.2W of energy from the entrance USB-C port was loads to fast-charge a smartphone. The rear USB-A ports supplied 5.7W, ok for bus-powered units. Only the Thunderbolt 4 cable to the laptop computer fell a bit brief. I couldn’t push it previous 82W, a bit lower than the 98W that Wavlink promised. That’s nonetheless ok for many productiveness laptops, nevertheless.

I used to be in a position to stream a 4K stream by way of Ethernet and throughout the Thunderbolt 4 cable with none challenge in any respect — the laptop computer and dock labored collectively to stop any frames from being dropped. (And, simply to examine, I performed again protected streamed video from Netflix throughout the HDMI ports. It labored positive.)

In phrases of storage efficiency, nevertheless, the Wavlink UTD-45 dock was slower than I’d like. I related a check SSD to the dock and ran PCMark’s storage benchmark towards it, part of my additional tests to see how properly the dock transfers information between SSDs

Kensington’s SD5800T prices about $100 greater than the Wavlink UTD-45, and its storage efficiency is about common: 130.74MB/s, when related to the check SSD. Even nonetheless, the UTD-45 produced simply 107.8MB/s utilizing the identical benchmark, and a statistically related quantity whereas streaming. That’s one of many slowest storage outcomes I’ve seen.

The dock carried out equally after I copied a multi-gigabyte folder of recordsdata from the SSD to the desktop throughout the Thunderbolt 4 cable. The Kensington SD5800T carried out the duty in 1 minute, 8 seconds, which was considerably sluggish. However, the UTD-45 notched the identical end result. It was after I streamed video over Ethernet and copied the recordsdata within the background, that issues obtained unhealthy: The switch time jumped to a torpid 1 minute, 34 seconds.

Should you purchase Wavlink’s Thunderbolt 4 UTD-45?

Wavlink costs its dock pretty aggressively, and I’m a giant believer in factoring affordability into my suggestions. Once up and operating, the UTD-45 didn’t give me any issues in any respect. It did really feel, most of the time, that I’d both have to attend or fiddle with the dock when rebooting or when resuming from a sleep state.

I can’t in good religion give Wavlink’s UTD-45 an Editors’ Choice award, due to its points. But I nonetheless relatively prefer it, too. Waiting an additional few seconds for it to repeat a file won’t matter to you. (Skip the non-compulsory driver!) Using the dock is a bit like beginning an outdated, reliable automotive: You may need to fiddle with it a bit, however it in any other case runs properly.