Review: Belkin's Thunderbolt Express Dock lets you get plugged in easily
As a MacBook Pro user, I can attest to the hassle of plugging and unplugging keyboards, headphones, ethernet cables, and external hard drives every time I arrive at and leave the office. The Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock should make things a bit easier: With just a single Thunderbolt cable (not included, unfortunately), this dock allows you to connect a deskful of peripherals to a Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook.
At its list price of $300, the Thunderbolt Express Dock isn’t cheap, but you do get lots of ports. The second of the two Thunderbolt ports gives you the ability to add up to five more Thunderbolt devices to the dock by daisy-chaining them together. This Belkin dock also has three USB 3.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, a gigabit ethernet port, and audio-in and -out ports.
Mike HomnickA Thunderbolt Express Dock with all of its ports in use.
I was able to connect gigabit ethernet, a FireWire 800 drive, a USB thumb drive, and a pair of headphones to the dock, all at the same time. As for Thunderbolt devices, I connected a LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series hard drive to an Apple LED Cinema Display, using a Mini DisplayPort connector attached to the drive’s second Thunderbolt port.
When I connected a Thunderbolt cable from a MacBook Air to the Thunderbolt Express Dock, all the drives mounted on the desktop automatically, the keyboard and mouse were recognized, the Cinema Display turned on with the proper resolution, and I was able to connect to the network through the gigabit ethernet connection. When it’s quitting time, you unmount the drives, disconnect the single Thunderbolt cable that connects the dock to the Mac (and the power cable), and you’re ready to hit the road.
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