Elgato Thunderbolt 3 Dock

TRUE ONE-CABLE CONVENIENCE FOR MACBOOK PRO

THE CAPABILITIES OF Thunderbolt 3 enable this dock to deliver on the promise of great convenience in a way earlier models couldn’t; as you come and go, you only have to deal with one cable, which now carries power to supported USB-C/Thunderbolt laptops (including the latest MacBook Pros, video to a display and data to peripherals. On top of that, Elgato provides a utility that sits in the menu bar, from which you can safely eject devices with a couple of clicks before unplugging your Mac.

This particular dock is capable of delivering up to 85W to a computer, so you can use it even with 15-inch MacBook Pros. It took us just a couple of days to appreciate that we no longer had to carry an extra charger in case our Mac needed a top-up during the day. There’s a downside, though: the price is considerably higher than its predecessor.

In terms of ports, there’s little change from Elgato’s previous docks. There’s a USB 3 Type-A port on the front, plus discrete 3.5mm ports for a mic and headphones. At the back are two more USB 3 Type-A ports, Gigabit Ethernet, a full-size DisplayPort and a passthrough Thunderbolt 3 port for daisychaining more devices. You can chain a 4K or 5K display, or even just a USB-C to Lightning cable to charge an iOS device; you’ll need to connect your Mac for the latter scenario, or switch to using a USB-A cable with one of the older ports to charge without your Mac around. And if you have an older dock and don’t have, nor plan to get, a high-res display, a Thunderbolt 2 adapter is cheaper.

Some models have more ports, but Elgato’s latest is a sound investment, capped off with an app that shows consideration for how you’ll use it with a supporting laptop.