Kensington SD5768T EQ Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station review
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Kensington SD5768T EQ: 30 seconds comment
Since I recently reviewed it, the Kensington SD5768T EQ Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station is comparable to the SD5000T5 EQ Thunderbolt 5 Dock, and it costs nearly the same price.
If the SD5000T5 is more like a hub without HDMI or DisplayPort, the Kensington SD5768T is a complete Thunderbolt 4 Dock with 13 ports. These include Thunderbolt Downlink, HDMI, 6 USB ports, dual card readers, audio and LAN ports.
It also has a wide range of compatibility, and can be used with Thunderbolt 3 and 4, USB4 and USB-C, allowing it to work with nearly any laptop with any specification of USB-C port.
Typically, Kensington uses elegant metal and plastic construction to provide a device that should last a three-year warranty, followed by some warranty.
The only caveat to the design is that it takes up a lot of table space and the asking price is absolutely on the steep side. If you want a meaningless design to support two monitors, this may be worth considering, but offers a better deal.
Not a candidate The best laptop docking station but not scary either.
Kensington SD5000T5 Equation: Price and Availability
- how much does it cost? $270/£290/€300
- When to go out? Start Available Now
- Where can you get it? Directly from Kensington Or from an online retailer
Depending on the region, the Kensington SD5768T EQ Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station can be purchased directly from the manufacturer or through an online retailer.
For those in the United States, sourcing this dock directly from Kensington will cost you $299.99, but finding it on Amazon.com will save you $30.
In Europe, the asking price is about €300 Amazonexcept the UK, it does not have it on Amazon. Fortunately, it can be found competitively at the best prices at online retailers curry For £290.
A little disturbing about these prices is that the cost is not far from the cost of the Thunderbolt 5 SD5000T5, a higher specification device.
The price difference may be distinct compared to competitor devices, with the SD5768T significantly exceeding most alternatives.
OWC offers 11 Thunderbolt 4 Docks for only $229.99, Caldigit The Elements Hub costs $179.99, while the Ugreen Revodok Max 208 costs only $249.99.
More expensive is the Ugreen Revodok Max 213 Thunderbolt 13 in-1 docking Station, which costs $299, the classic Caldigit TS4 costs $350, and the pluggable Thunderbolt 4 Dock (TBT-6950PD) for $299.95. However, all of these are higher spec devices, with more Thunderbolt downlink ports, 2.5GBE LAN ports and a larger charging power level.
In short, if you want a basic Thunderbolt 4 dock, you can buy it for a price that is much lower than that, depending on how many ports you need and the charging requirements.
Kensington SD5768T EQ: Specifications
|
compatibility |
TB4, TB3, USB4 and USB-C |
|
Number of ports |
13 |
|
port |
1x TB4 upstream 96W PD, 1x TB4 downstream, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 1x Combo Microphone & Headphone Port (front), 1x 1GbE RJ45 Ethernet port, 2x HDMI, 1x SD 4.0 Card reader,1x MicroSD 4.0 Card reader |
|
Downstream power |
1x 15W TB4 DFP, 1x 7.5W USB-C, 4X 4.5W USB-A |
|
Upstream power |
96W lightning |
|
size |
225 x 85 x 22mm (wxdxh) |
|
weight |
395g |
|
Accessories |
PSU adapter 134.4W 21v 6.4a, 50cm thunderbolt 4 cable |
Kensington SD5768T EQ: Design
- Elegant aesthetics
- Poor port location
- Only 1GBE LAN port
The construction quality of Kensington hardware is usually excellent, and the SD5768T maintains these standards in elegant form. While most of its structure is plastic, a logo engraved on the aluminum cover emits some kind of gravity.
For those who don’t have much desk space, this can cause a problem, as it’s 22.5 cm long and the number of cables around it can be important.
Unlike some other options, the dock cannot be installed vertically, although it has threaded holes in the bottom surface, which implies that these docks can be sold separately using the K34050 mount, which can be used to connect monitors. Accessibility when plugging the drive into the dock in this case.
Take a look at the SD5768T soon to make sure the designers have never used the dock because the port location on this model is shocking.
The only thing wrong with Kensington’s SD5000T5 is the rear placement of the power button, which is not repeated here. But some other choices made on the SD5768T make zero meaningful.
In the front, driving from left to right are the audio jack, the SD card reader (two standards), two USB-A ports, the only Thunderbolt 4 downlink, Thunderbolt uplink and power button.
Until you realize that the USB-A port is Gen 1 and the Gen 2 port is behind, this seems good, which seems good, which is inconvenient for external SSDs. And if you plan to use a Thunderbolt monitor, the front port is not a good choice either.
It might make more sense to swap the USB-C Gen 2 port, which is recharged with a Thunderbolt Downlink for a phone.
The rear has dual HDMI ports, dual USB-A Gen 2 ports, the aforementioned USB-C Gen 2 ports and an Ethernet port.
The only 1GBE spec for the LAN port is shocking, as even cheaper dock manufacturers use 2.5GBE LAN ports these days. You can repurpose a single TB downlink of 10GBE/5GBE/2.5GBE using the adapter, but only one might seem extravagant.
Kensington SD5768T EQ: Features
- Bandwidth Management
- Double display only
- Power Management
This is not a special issue for Kensington, but the common point of this dock is the ability to provide equipment that cannot support all ports of its full specifications.
Sharing the maximum 40Gbps enabled by Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 between these ports is always a challenge, especially when it has two HDMI ports and a 20GBPS TB downlink, ignoring all USB, card reader, and LAN ports.
Since the LAN port here is only 1GBE, it can do more bandwidth around it, but some significant limitations on monitor connections need to be documented.
So if you use any HDMI port, cut the bandwidth of everything else in half. Under Thunderbolt 3 and 4 on Mac and PC, the best display option is dual monitors connected by HDMI, delivering 4K at 60Hz. High resolution of 8K on PC and 6K on Mac are available via Thunderbolt ports, but only for one screen. A display is also the most available display on the MacBook M1/M2 or iPad Pro, as well as a Windows PC using USB-C ALT mode.
For those who want to play games on PC and Mac, the resolution can be reduced to 1080p and get a dual display in 240Hz. However, on lightning-connected PCs, some more peculiar modes, such as 8K at 60hz at 60hz and 4K at 120Hz, require support for display stream compression (DSC) on host devices and monitors.
If you have one on your laptop, I recommend connecting to the monitor directly using the HDMI port. This may mean connecting two cables instead of one, but the dock will have more bandwidth.
But it is not only necessary to share bandwidth on this dock. Power supply is also something that is supplied by a controlled manner.
According to Kensington, “up to 96W of power transmission is supported and automatically adjusted for optimal performance.” In fact, this means that the maximum power output of the PSU that comes with this dock is only 134.4W, and once the dock has enough power to run, it may provide 96W on the Thunderbolt link to connect to the laptop connection. But this assumes that you don’t have anything else.
Each of the USB-A Gen 1 ports is 5V/0.9A (4.5W each), and the USB-A Gen 2 ports are the same, with an additional 9W. The single USB-C Gen 2 port is 7.5W for phone charging, while the single TB4 DFP downlink is 15W. Add all of this, which is 40.5W, when added to 96W, it can produce 136.5W, not what this PSU can provide without considering the power required to run the dock.
The only possible conclusion is that each device you add to the SD5768T will cause the power from 96W allocated to the charging uplink, otherwise the PSU will not be able to handle the power requirement.
This is not uncommon, and most docks cannot power everything attached, but for those docks that require 96W to charge for mobile workstations or gaming laptops, it is worth noting that the PSU on that dock only offers so much functionality in some cases.
Kensington SD5768T EQ: Performance
I have no complaints about this dock about the functionality of Thunderbolt and USB4 connections, which is a huge difference from the Thunderbolt 5 dock I’ve tried.
Using Thunderbolt and USB4 external drives, the maximum speed of these devices is achieved on the Thunderbolt and USB4 downlinks.
The Thunderbolt 4 connects from an Intel Core Ultra Mini PC and the USB4 port comes from an AMD Ryzen Mini PC, both of which are excellent. I also tried the dock with a Dell Pro Pro 14 premium laptop with Thunderbolt 4 and the connectivity is just as flawless.
For example, when CORSAIR EX400U Connect the USB4 SSD and run Crystaldiskmark 8.05 to read 3166MB/s and write speed is 3003Mb/s.
The speed is great for Thunderbolt or USB4 peripherals, but there is only one downlink port for this purpose.
Kensington SD5768T EQ: Final Verdict
Depending on how many ports you usually use on the dock, the SD5768T is a highly available or obvious boundary line.
All docks tend to relax with the speed of bandwidth, but at this dock, more of the question is how to share power. For those who want a demanding laptop charging experience, there may be some compromise on other aspects of your hanging on the dock.
Another issue is the price, which seems to be at least $50 more than the hardware can comfortably justify it. If this is a little cheaper than the TB5 SD5000T5 and isn’t too close, some other traits may be easier to ignore.
I’m not a fan of the port location either, behind the port location is the phone charging port, the TB downlink on the front.
For this asking price, the proper aspect of putting the port on the dock seems to be the minimum requirement that Kensington has failed to achieve.
Kensington SD5768T EQ: Report Card
|
value |
TB4 Pier is expensive |
3/5 |
|
design |
The wrong place port |
2.5 / 5 |
|
feature |
PSU is too small for all ports |
3/5 |
|
Performance |
Perfect with TB4 and USB4 |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Comprehensive |
An expensive dock with power limits |
3.5 / 5 |
Should You Buy Kensington SD5768T EQ?
