yes cal digit has finally taken the
wraps off of their brand new thunderbolt
station 4 dock or ts4 this brand new
thunderbolt dock has 18 ports of
connectivity but how does that compare
to their existing ts3 plus hey i'm jerry
and cal digit was kind enough to send me
their brand new flagship ts4 dock which
i used to create a video showing the
unboxing and an in-depth overview of all
18 ports on the brand new ts4 but in
this video i just wanted to give you a
quick overview and show you the
differences between the new ts4 and the
existing ts3 plus but this video is not
sponsored or paid for by cal digit and
if you're still trying to get your hands
on one of these ts4 docs the good news
is you can still pre-order it on b h
photo for hopefully a february delivery
so i'll put a link in the description
below so you can find it and i'll update
it when amazon links become available
alright so getting right into it the
first thing that you're going to notice
is that these guys are obviously from
the same family you can see that the
design language is almost the exact same
on all sides this is a full aluminum
enclosure and on the top and sides you
do have this fin design which helps with
heat dissipation and if you're familiar
with the ts3 plus you'll know that this
design is like rock solid this thing
just feels premium and the ts4 is the
same way now comparing them side by side
you'll see that the ts4 is a bit larger
than the ts3 plus and i don't have the
specs in front of me but you'll see that
it is about half an inch to three
quarters of an inch deeper and maybe
about quarter to half an inch taller
than the ts3 plus both of these docks
can be oriented in either the vertical
or horizontal position they both come
with these rubber feet on the sides that
allow you to place it in a horizontal
position under a monitor or on a desk or
you know just leave it up vertically now
when we start to look at the ports on
the front of these devices you'll start
to see some differences in the ports the
ts4 includes 18 ports and the cal digit
ts3 plus includes 15 ports if we start
on the left hand side of both we have
the sd card readers on the ts3 plus you
have a single uhs 2 card reader for full
size sd cards on the ts4 you actually
get two separate uhs-2 card readers one
for sd card and one for micro sd and you
can actually use both of those sd slots
at the same time on the ts4 so if you
have an sd card for a camera and a micro
sd card for audio you can actually
insert both of those cards and pull in
data simultaneously from both of those
cards the ts3 plus had a usbc and usb a
port on the front for easy connectivity
of peripherals and devices and those
were limited at five gigabits per second
with the ts4 all of the usb ports on the
ts4 are actually 10 gigabit per second
usb ports now the standard usb a and
usbc ports are all seven and a half
watts on both the ts3 and the ts4 except
for this front usb c port on the ts4
this front usb c port can actually
output up to 20 watts of power making it
perfect for charging high-powered
devices or even for things like apple's
magsafe charging puck on the back side
we're going to see even more changes on
the ts4 compared to the ts3 plus
first off on the top left you're gonna
see ethernet and on the ts3 plus you get
one gigabit ethernet which is the same
ethernet connection that almost every
device that you probably have is but the
ts4 actually comes with 2.5 gigabit
ethernet which is up to two and a half
times faster now trust me when i say
that if you have a 2.5 gigabit switch or
router and something like a nas that has
2.5 gigabit ethernet you're gonna see
way faster transfer speeds than you
would get normally with one gigabit
ethernet and if you have multi-gig
internet coming into your house first of
all your lucky sob and second you can
actually take advantage of it when using
ethernet through the ts4 both of these
devices the ts3 and the ts4 do have four
usb a ports on the back and again the
usb a ports on the ts3 plus are five
gigabits per second whereas the usb a
ports on the ts4 are all 10 gigabit per
second and where that comes in handy is
something like an external ssd that has
10 gigabit per second connection through
usb a or usbc like this guy which can
get you up to about a gigabyte per
second in transfer speeds on the rear
each of these have a single usbc data
port which are both capable of 10
gigabits per second and they both have
displayport for video out on the ts3
plus it is displayport 1.2 and cal digit
supports 4k at 60 hertz but on the ts4
with displayport 1.4 you can get up to
144 hertz at 4k and up to 240 hertz at
1440p and i don't currently have any
high refresh rate displays to test with
this right now but i should hopefully in
the next week now when it comes to audio
on the rear cal digit made some changes
here as well on the ts3 plus you had
optical audio out which allowed you to
connect to things like receivers or
other professional audio equipment but
as i understand it that was a very
rarely used port on the ts3 plus and on
the ts4 now you have separate audio in
and out jacks on the back side and this
is great for connecting speakers
full-time and when you connect
headphones to the front this port will
then take over and become the default
for audio output all right so two things
left to talk about thunderbolt ports and
power
with the ts3 plus you had two
thunderbolt ports one of those goes to
the computer and then one of those goes
to a device so you could connect that to
an additional monitor if you wanted to
or you can connect it to some fast
external storage or an egpu anything
like that the ts4 on the other hand has
two additional thunderbolt 4 ports along
with the connection for the computer the
nice thing about having an additional
thunderbolt port on the ts4 is that if
one of your displays or your only
display is connected via usbc or
thunderbolt then you still have an
additional thunderbolt port on the back
of the dock to be able to connect some
fast external storage like a thunderbolt
ssd let me address one thing that i saw
in the comments over the last few days
which was a concern about too many ports
on a single thunderbolt 4 connection
the thunderbolt 4 like thunderbolt 3
maxes out at 40 gigabits per second so
if you're reading something from a
thunderbolt ssd at 2 800 megabytes per
second that's about half the bandwidth
of thunderbolt 4.
and add in a couple of 10 gigabit per
second ssds along with a 5k display and
2.5 gigabit ethernet and you could max
out the connection
but cal digit does say that displays
take priority so you shouldn't see any
issues with displays and with my basic
testing i was still able to get around
the maximum 2 800 megabits per second
using an external thunderbolt ssd while
having the lg 5k ultra fine display
connected to the dock as well and when
it comes to power the ts3 plus can
output up to 87 watts of power through
the thunderbolt connection and the ts4
can output up to 98 watts of power
through that thunderbolt connection and
i've used both these docks with the 16
inch macbook pro with m1 max and have
had zero issues with any power
requirements they provide more than
enough power for regular use heck even
with the element hub that gives you 60
watts of power that's still more than
enough power for regular use i think
that the only time you would ever see
any power drain while using either one
of these devices to power your 16-inch
macbook pro with m1 max is if you're
pushing it to 110
for 20 hours straight you're really not
going to have any issues even with heavy
workloads once those workloads subside
they provide more than enough power to
recharge your macbook alright so that's
pretty much it that's the differences
between the new ts4 from cal digit and
the ts3 plus the ts4 runs around 360
dollars on cal digit's website and the
ts3 plus rounds around 300
the ports on these devices are just
slightly different if you need optical
audio output and you don't need to
connect the fastest storage available
then the ts3 plus is going to be great
and you'll save 60 but still get a ton
of ports if you're using a thunderbolt
or usbc display and you need fast
external thunderbolt storage and maybe
you have a couple of different sd cards
you like to use at the same time and
maybe you need multi-gig ethernet then
the ts4 is the way to go but what do you
guys think does the ts4 have everything
that you want in a thunderbolt dock let
me know below if you're interested in
getting the fastest external thunderbolt
storage for your m1 based max then check
out this video right over here
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