What is going on, everyone, I am Mike, welcome back to
Tech 24/7 TV.
I'm glad that you're back with me today because I've an
accessory for you to check out.
This is an accessory that which really allows you to
scale your creativity.
Maybe you have a MacBook Pro, maybe if a Mac Mini for sure,
you probably have an iPad Air or an iPad pro.
And really those devices are limited by the number of
devices that you can connect to it.
Maybe you want to connect more than one hard drive.
Maybe you want to go ahead and charge your device while also
connecting an external display and a hard drive.
This is something that is going to solve those problems
for you.
This is the OWC Thunderbolt 4 dock from Other
World Computing.
This is two hundred forty nine dollars ($249) and it was
announced at CES twenty twenty one.
I preordered then and I received maybe a few days ago.
It's not really available in mass quantities, but they are
doing preorders at this moment.
If you're looking to pick one up, I will put a link down
in the description below.
Now, what makes this dock unique is that first of all,
there are four Thunderbolt 4 ports on here, it is backwards
compatible with Thunderbolt 3 so you don't necessarily need
to get new peripherals.
It is also compaatible with USB4, which is
a new standard.
And it'll work with not just Macs, but also PCs
as well.
This is really a lot to offer.
It's two hundred fourty-nine dollars.
So in today's video, we're going to take a look
at it, unbox it, tell you at the end of the video whether
you should purchase it or not.
Let's get started.
Now, while we are opening this up, just to make
sure that you and I are on the same page.
This video is not sponsored by the OWC, this is not paid
for by OWC, I bought this using my own money and OWC has no
editorial control in the content that we can
talk about today.
Matter of fact, they're watching this video at
the same time you are.
So this is not a paid review.
Second thing is that if you like this type of content with
its Mac accessories, iPad accessories,
accessory builds, make sure you subscribed to on notifications
because you don't want to miss the next video.
So let's take this out of the box here, and this is what
we see, this is the actual dock itself.
It's actually nicely sized.
We have the SD card reader on the front, which is UHC-II to a
USB 2.0 port, 40 gigabits per second data to and
from your Mac.
And this is actually going to be the cable or the port here
that plugs in to your Mac and charges it up to 90 watts.
Now, on the back we have the DC in we have three additional
Thunderball ports, which is unique.
This is the first Thunderbolt dock that I've seen that has a
total of four Thunderball ports.
Most only have three.
Usually there's gigabit Ethernet and three USB- Aports
here in the back.
Now the Thunderbolt for you will connect any Mac.
It doesn't matter if it's an Intel based Mac.
If it's an episode, can Mako connect to a PC?
It's all about being a Thunderbolt for compliance,
which is really just the rationalization of Thunderbolt
three and a USB4.
Now.
This will go ahead and provide 90 watts of passthrough power.
So it's just not enough for the newer 16 inch MacBook pros that
require 96 watts.
But you should still be able to plug in the charger that came
in with your Mac.
Now, the unique feature about this dock is that even though
it's Thunderball for it is backwards compatible
Thunderbolt three and USB4.
So what that means is because the interface technology
is USB, so you can take this dock and plug in your iPad pro
iPad Air for and it will charge your iPad if you have a display
that's connected to it.
That's USB see like this LG ultrafine monitor that
I have here.
It'll go ahead and output the iPad to that display.
So it's giving you the ability to connect many
different interfaces, you know, accessories to this
and still take advantage of the dock.
So not saying that you would buy the stock because you have
an iPad, but if you have, you know, an iPad and
a MacBook or an iPad and a Mac Mini, it's something that
is multiuse and you could use it between
many different machines.
Now, still, Apple has not fixed the problem where you're not
getting full display resolution on your external display.
But I hope with a fix that sometime very soon maybe we're
going to get that this fall in iPadOS 15.
Inside the box, you can have a few things.
One, a quick reference guide that's going to show you how to
go and get set up, two to you're going to have
this ginormous, ginormous charging adapter to
get started here and have a Thunderball for cable that is
two point six feet long.
Now, again, Thunderbolt four, is it backwards compatible with
Underbool three?
This is really about standardization and making sure
that PCs can get all the same features that Mac users have
been using for a very long time.
The reason why I bought the object is because I needed to
replace my existing Thunderbolt dock .
and this is the CalDigit TB3.
This is a great dock, actually.
Got it.
I think maybe around Christmas time I was able
to purchase this.
And as great of a dock that this is, there is a couple of
limiting factors which impact my workflow, which is the
reason why I wanted to get the *Thunderbolt 4* dock.
There are only two Thunderbolt ports on here, which for me I
needed more than that because every accessory I have on my
desk is a Thunderbolt accessory and connected
to my iPad.
That is also a great benefit to me.
Next, what we will do is we will take a look at the side by
side against the CalDigit TB3 to
Compare the features of each one.
So here we have a Type two card reader, which is going to
be the same here.
There's a USB 2.0 slot here on the front, which is going to be
the same here.
We have a USB port, which is also going to give you
the same speed.
This does have the headphone jack out in the speaker out
while this only has the headphone out.
But here we have that Thunderball for port, which you
can be able to transfer data to your device at 40 gigabits
per second, as well as charger device up to 90 watts.
Now, here on the back, we have the gigabit Ethernet port.
You can either port, we have a USB C 10 gigabits for USB ports
at five gigabits and then two USB ports.
This does have display port out and this does have
optical audio out.
However, neither of those things are really of any use in
this setup that I have.
I really need all the connectivity that I have,
which is why I chose this.
So at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, is it
worth spending two hundred and forty nine dollars ($249) on
the Thunderbolt4 Dock?
If you are maybe getting your first dock,
you're replacing Doc.
Here are the things that I would think through.
So obviously I'm going to have a machine that supports
Thunderbolt and I'm really comfortable spending
the $250 bucks.
I think that goes without saying.
If your workflow contains, you know, several different
USB accessories, several different
Thunderbolt accessories, and you always find yourself
unplugging one and plugging the other in, that's a pain
in the butt.
You might want to consider this.
I think this is a good purchase.
If you have a multi-device workflow where you have a Mac
Mini or maybe a Mac pro and use an iPad or you want to switch
between them and still access the same drives.
This is a good workflow because it's again, it's can be
a single point.
In my connection here.
I have my Thunderball dock next to my Mac Mini.
I'm a Mac Mini connected to my display and then I have several
devices daisy chained off the dock here, including my Bolt3,
which is like my scratch drive and my ray drive, which I do
all my backups on.
So if you have that kind of workflow where you need access
to all these different peripherals, drives,
whatever the case is, this is a good thing to go in and combine
them and use a single cable as the connection to your device.
Now, let me know in the comments below if you
have any questions.
My name is Mike.
This is Tech 24/7 TV folks.
I'll talk to the next one.
First of all, there are four Thunderbolt for now.
The charging port out here.
We'll go ahead and connect.
Nope.
I would love if Apple would fix the freaking output resolution
problem on here, which for me, I needed more than that
because every
one.
Two, three.