What is going on, everyone?
I am Mike, welcome back to Tech 24/7 TV.
I'm glad that you're with me because we're unboxing a
brand new accessory.
This is a Satechi Dock5, and this is a charging station
that's designed to relieve all the charging anxiety that you
have in your life for all the different devices.
Now, this device has the ability to charge five
different devices by a mixture of either USB C, USB,
A, or wireless charging, Qi charging, as I like
to call it.
And now the question is, is this worth buying?
So in today's video, we're going to go
and unbox it, give you my opinion, if you're using it
for a few days and I'll let you know at the end who
should buy it.
Let's get started.
Now, before we get the review, if you like this type of
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Like I said in the beginning, this is the Satechi Dock5 and
this is designed to charge five devices at once.
It has two USB C ports which are 20 watts each, and then two
USB A ports, which are each 12 watts.
On the front, it has a charging pad which can charges any
device up to 10 watts.
So there's a total of 70 watts in this unit, which is really
good for thing for most people.
Now, I bought this because I have an iPhone, I have
an iPad, I have a work phone that I need to keep charged.
And quite frankly, I always forget to charge my
work phone.
And this is really, I think, going to make my
charging life easier.
I plan to put this here in the studio and not on my bedside
table because not everything I bring obviously to my bedroom
what I want that charged.
Now, let's go ahead and get this opened and see
what it's like.
I did pick this up from Satechi and they're available now.
It was just recently announced so there might be some delays
in getting it because it's just a brand new product.
But otherwise, I say it was shipped really quickly and it
took about two to three days of shipping after purchasing it.
This comes with at least it looks like on the box the
integrated plug, which is going to be good because I don't like
when they have those big chunky adapters that you have to plug
in separately from.
That just makes the whole, I guess, fit and finish of the
product feel cheap and chintzy.
It's worth noting that I don't believe this comes
with any cables.
Satechi gives you the option to purchase them
separately online.
And I guess for sixty bucks, that's not really expected
because it is coming by the unit itself.
Let's put this on the side.
First thing that I notice about this is that it is the top of
it is all soft-touch rubber.
So when you put your devices in here, it's going to actually
give you some protection from being scratched or nicked.
It is plastic.
The base is plastic.
You're on the side.
You see the ports are labeled very clearly, so you shouldn't
mix that up.
One thing I think is kind of strange, the lip of it,
it's actually not attached, but there are these little
divots that secure in there.
OK, well, I guess I would have thought that this is all going
to be one part of, or a single part of the construction.
So there's a single cable to plug this in.
This is obviously the US plug, so this is pretty ideal.
Now, I personally am OK with the fact that it doesn't come
with any USB cables or any cables to charge the devices
only because I would rather have the cost low and use the
cables that I want to use as opposed to buying them from
Satechi because they're like seventeen and for the USA
lightning cables and then ten dollars for the USB cables
straight USB C so that is OK with me.
Let's plug.
Listen, I certainly understand why they make short cords
because this is obviously a regular light and cable from
Apple and that's obviously too long.
While this won't charge an Apple Watch directly by using
the cheap, had you could use one of the magnetic pucks that
you got with your Apple Watch and then use that to charge
your watch separately, that's totally doable.
What you can do is take a MagSafe charging that put that
on here if you want to charge another device eMag safe.
But that really would make sense.
Now, I think from a design perspective, this is
actually really nice.
It does have a good fit and finish minus these pads that
come up here towards the end.
But I'd say that's not really a big concern.
I'm just nit-picky I really like the fact that it only has
one cable that has to plug into this.
And it's good because if you have more than one device like
an iPhone, you and your spouse have an iPhone.
You and a friend have an iPhone and some iPads.
That's going to work out really well for this.
I do like it from that respect.
I probably would have bought the cables now kind of looking
at this, because these cables are really long and it's kind
of obnoxious the way that it sits here and that it's really
long like that because I think it's supposed to be a
charging station, not something that you pull your device out
and then put it back.
When you're done with your device, you put it back,
charge it up and you're on your way.
Now, at the end of the day, you can ask yourself who should
buy this for sixty bucks?
,
I think that if you have more than one device, whether it's
an iPhone and an iPad, an iPhone, a pair of iPods,
an iPad, if you're a multi iPad family, this is really,
I think, a good deal for people who have that kind
of environments, because you can go ahead and charge
multiple devices at once without necessarily needing a
bunch of cables tied into ountertop, your desktop,
wherever you have those devices because it has a single cable
that you see right here.
I think at fifty-nine dollars, this is probably the better.
One of the better ones I've seen.
Though there was one that I saw last year.
It was the Scosche Baselynx based links and I'll put a link
to it above.
That was nice because you could configure it any way.
You had a module for the iPhone's, a module for the
Apple Watch model for the recharging your iPads via
USB C, and you can kind of expand this as you needed to,
which was really cool, but it was at least double the price.
I think it was almost two hundred bucks.
It's about three times the price of this.
This is not necessarily as
configurable.
Right.
And you have only these four parts and this charging.
That's on here, but I think it's giving you, I would say,
80 percent of the functionality for, you know,
two thirds less the cost.
So for me, I think that this is a really good deal.
I would say that you wouldn't want to get this is if you
haven't if you're trying to solve an Apple Watch problem
because unless you want to use the charging puck itself,
this isn't something that I would say is necessarily
designed to charge an Apple Watch.
And this is a workaround, and that's really the way that
it should be done.
But let me know what you think about it in the
comments below.
My name is Mike.
This is Tech 24/7 TV.
And folks, I'll talk to the next one.