When the Kensington SD5600T works, it's a solid dock. Kensington itself makes a ton of great docks that would be a far better fit than this one. I could go on with numerous smaller grievances, but the bottom line here is that I'm not going to recommend the SD5600T in a market absolutely filled to burst with other docking options. The Ethernet port will light up as though it's sending and receiving data, but there's no sign on my PC that there's anything but Wi-Fi. Sometimes unplugging the accessories and plugging them back in works, but other times the power cable and host cable must be disconnected and reset before plugging in any accessories. What webcam? What mouse? What SD card? You get the picture. With the external display(s) lit up, the dock will often refuse to recognize any other attached accessories. At least this was the case with the XPS 13. If the dock does recognize it's attached to a PC, it can take up to 45 seconds to take over and start sending a message to the external display. To fix, the dock's power cable must be reset, and even then, it sometimes takes a few tries. The dock will sometimes refuse to recognize that it's been attached to a PC. I moved back to the XPS 13 to continue testing. Though they seemed to connect much faster to the dock, there were still major issues with connected accessories and display recognition. I also tested using HP's Omen 15 and Lenovo's latest ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The host cable included with the dock was used to connect my laptop. Unfortunately, there was not much of a change to the issues I will lay out in a moment. All drivers from Dell, including all Thunderbolt 3 drivers, were updated, and I ensured Kensington's DockWorks software was up to date. After reaching out to Kensington's live-chat support - which was prompt and polite - I updated to Windows version 20H2 at their recommendation. I tested the SD5600T primarily with Dell's XPS 13 9300, first with Windows version 1909. Following is a rundown of the troubleshooting I attempted. It seems stable at the moment, but I didn't just sit down and plug in the host cable. I'm using it now to connect a display, webcam, mouse, SD card, Ethernet cable, and to charge my phone. Unfortunately, the time I spent using it as the centerpiece for my day-to-day operation resulted in more frustration than work. The dock is well built, it has a generous share of ports, and it can stand vertically or horizontally. The Kensington SD5600T never worked well enough that I'd consider keeping it on my desk. What I dislike about Kensington's SD5600T Thunderbolt 3 dock Kensington sells a VESA mounting accessory that can get the dock up off your desk and behind your monitor if you're seriously short of flat surfaces. There are two Kensington lock slots - standard and nano - on the backside of the dock, adding some modicum of security for professionals using the dock in an office setting. After testing, it seems both readers are using the same controller, so don't expect to read and write from them both simultaneously. Both SD and microSD readers are UHS-II, meaning you can expect read speeds somewhere around 285 MB/s and write speeds around 155 MB/s. The lone USB-C port on the front of the dock doesn't support video, and there's no downstream Thunderbolt 3, so don't buy this dock expecting to set up a USB-C monitor chain.ĭual card readers on the front of the dock make it easy for those working with removable storage to transfer data back and forth. And the addition of dual HDMI 2.0 ports in a docking world where they have largely been forgotten adds some much-needed versatility for anyone who isn't using a monitor with a DisplayPort connection. Using the dock connected to a 2K and a 4K display, each with DisplayPort, posed no problems when the dock actually decided to work. Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central) It likely won't keep a gaming laptop charged, but it should do fine with Ultrabooks. You're going to get up to 100W of charging power back to your laptop, which is enough for most laptops, even with notebook-class discrete graphics. This is standard stuff and applies to all docking stations that offer double connectivity. A true Thunderbolt 3 connection allows for 40Gbps performance, whereas USB-C (Gen 2) hits 10Gbps and USB-C (Gen 1) hits just 5Gbps. Depending on your laptop, docking capabilities will differ. This is a USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 dock, meaning it will work with more devices than a dock intended for just one interface.
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