Anker Apex Thunderbolt 4 Dock, Apogee Duet 3
Power and ports galore
£280 FROM uk.anker.com FEATURES 90W MacBook charging, 20W Power Delivery, triple 4K display support
Anker’s latest dock for Intel MacBooks comes with a 120W external power supply and Thunderbolt 4 cable, which carries both data and up to 90W of power.
It also supplies 20W to its USB-C port with Power Delivery, so you can charge your Mac and iOS device at full power at the same time.
In addition to the main Thunderbolt 4 and USB-C port on the front are an audio jack, a power button and an SD card 4.0 UHS-II slot for fast data transfers. The rear has four USB-A ports; two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0, all powered suitably for charging smaller devices, and a Gigabit Ethernet port.
Then there’s a second Thunderbolt 4 port, providing 15W of power and 40Gbps data. But it can also drive a 5K monitor at 60Hz when one external display is connected. And then two HDMI ports, both of which can drive a 4K display at 60Hz. So you can drive up to three monitors in addition to your MacBook’s display, all at 4K (60Hz). Windows offers single monitor support up to 8K, but is slightly slower. macOS is also only able to mirror content across its two HDMI ports where Windows can use them independently, but again this is down to the OS, not the dock.
This is a compact dock that provides more than enough expandability for the majority of MacBook owners, though it’s a big investment. Hollin Jones