Hi, I'm Mitchell, one of the product owners here at Plugable.
Today we're gonna be talking about the 2023 MacBook Pros,
specifically the 14 inch M2 Pro and the 16 inch M2 Max versions.
Since release day, our team in Redmond, Washington has been doing a lot of
compatibility testing to see how well these new systems work with our products.
If you wanna check out our blog for more information on those
compatibility test results, I'll leave a link in the description.
From the M2's debut in 2022 to the release of the M2 Pro and M2 Max at the start of
2023 not a lot has changed on the outside.
Inside, however, the new MacBook Pros offer a bevy of
new specs and improvements.
One of the biggest improvements, at least for me, is native support
for more external displays without relying on a driver-based solution.
The M2 Pro supports a total of two additional screens while the M2 Max can
support up to four, but the max number of displays either model will support
from a single Thunderbolt 4 port is two.
The original M1 and M2 MacBooks you might recall, only have native
support for one extended display.
From our testing with these new laptops, we've chosen to highlight a couple
of docking stations that really stand out for performance, flexibility and
the added functionality they provide.
So let's take a look at two of our favorite docs for these laptops
and we'll start with our pick for the best stocking station for the
M2 Pro and M2 Max powered MacBook.
The plugable, TBT4-UDZ,
launched at CES 2023.
This Thunderbolt 4 docking station has two HDMI ports and
two display port connections so you can mix or match your screens.
No matter which display connections you land on, both monitors can run at
the 4K 60 resolution at the full native performance of the Apple silicon.
It's worth noting that technically this is a quad dock for Windows users.
The underlying technology to make that work called MST isn't
supported on Mac at this time.
So on Mac systems, this is a dual display dock.
But a more convenient connection for your screens is just the start.
On the front of the dock, you have your SD card readers, two USB ports,
an audio input output combo jack, and a Thunderbolt 4 connection to
the host with 98 watts of charging.
On the back, you have even more room to grow with your four USB ports.
A 10 gigabit per second USB-C port, 2.5 gigabit ethernet, our first dock with
2.5 gig ethernet, which I'm excited about, and your display connections.
With 16 ports in total, you should be able to get your MacBook connected
to, well, just about everything.
Here's a common question we get.
What's the difference between the TBT4-UDZ I just talked about, and
its predecessor, the TBT3-UDZ?
The biggest shift is on window systems where the newer Thunderbolt 4
design supports up to four displays.
As I mentioned a minute ago, the underlying technology for that quad
display support MST isn't currently available on Mac systems, so the
display capabilities are relatively unchanged between versions.
Additionally, the Thunderbolt 4 dock has 2.5 gigabit ethernet
compared to the 1 gigabit ethernet on the Thunderbolt 3 version.
So that's a big plus for those who want to make use of NextGen
wire and ethernet capabilities.
And then there's some low level subtle improvements in the Thunderbolt 4
version like USB packet tunneling, and an increased certified charging.
If your use case doesn't see a strong benefit from those enhancements,
consider the predecessor of the TBT3-UDZ.
It has a similar complement of connections, but with a slightly
lower charging at 96 watts.
This model's a little cheaper too, which is always a nice feature.
We've tested both of these docks extensively on the M2 Pro and
M2 Max powered MacBook Pros, and they performed exceptionally.
Thanks for learning more about docking Apple's latest MacBooks with me.
If you'd like to get a better look at the products we talked about
today, I'll leave links down below.
And as always, if you have questions on connections or comments on anything
else, you can let us know down below.
Or contact us directly by emailing support@plugable.com to get all
the latest updates from Plugable,
Be sure to like and subscribe.