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Thunderbolt 4 is here, and so is the first fully powered Thunderbolt 4 docking station. Kensington’s SD5700T includes a whopping 11 ports, 90W of power delivery, and transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps. It provides either one 8K output at 30 Hz or two 4K outputs at 60 Hz.
This is the kind of dock where you have to hold your pinky real high when you use it. It’s got a price of $289.99 on Kensington’s site. That’s expensive. But if this is something that you actually need and can make practical use of, and you have deep enough pockets, then this is a good choice for you.
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Most devices that have Thunderbolt ports have, well, very few of them. These devices, in fact, tend to have very few ports in general. So, if you have one of these computers, but you want to use an additional monitor or more peripherals such as a keyboard and mouse, or say, a wired network connection, you will need some form of port expander or dock.
It’s important to remember that Thunderbolt 4 is backward compatible. So, you don’t have to get an SD5700T. You could always get a lower-cost Thunderbolt 3-based dock or port replicator. But the Kensington’s SD5700T does represent a great value if you one of those people that needs more connectivity options.
The dock, like any other Thunderbolt 4 device, is compatible with MacBooks that have Thunderbolt 3 ports as long as they are running macOS Big Sur.
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