Hey, I'm Chris Wilmshurst
and today
we're taking a look
at the 14 Port Thunderbolt
3 dock from OWC.
They kindly sent this out to me to review
and it was a great excuse
to clean up my desk.
So I got to work, disconnecting
my CalDigit TS3+
and replaced it with this.
Now right off the back
there isn't a huge difference
between the two.
The two obvious differences
are the inclusion
of a micro SD card reader.
The lower and wider profile,
a mini display port
instead of a full size one
and the omission of an extra
USB C port on the back,
the OWC costs 249 on their website
and a TS3 cost me 230 from Amazon.
Other than those differences,
you have a UHS-ii, SD card reader,
5 USB 3.0 ports.
Two Thunderbolt three ports, one
which provides 85 Watts of power,
an Ethernet Jack, optical audio out.
A combi headphone jack
and a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port.
Now I do like the design.
It's clean, sits
well on the desk
and it's not too imposing.
But if I had to pick something
I didn't like about it, it would be
the glossy plastic top.
It's a fingerprint magnet,
and I'd have preferred it to be a metal
or matte finish.
One issue I had with the TS 3
is that it got very hot quickly.
I would pop out my SD cards
and they'd be very warm to the touch.
This doesn't eliminate all the heat,
but it's far cooler in my opinion.
The implementation of a USB three
Gen 2 port on the front is great
if you have an NVME external drive,
you can take full advantage of it
without having to plug it into
the Thunderbolt 3 port behind.
Also, be sure to check back later
as I'll be reviewing this tiny
waterproof NVME drive from OWC.
Make sure you subscribe.
The 3.1 port gives you
10 gig transfer rate,
which in my initial tests
using an older NVME drive
I was getting about 600 megabits right
and 750 megabits read.
To put that into context,
it would take you a little over a minute
to transfer 100 gig.
The inclusion of a micro
SD card is fantastic
if you work with drones
or audio recorders.
They all use them,
so being able to just throw
it straight in without one of these
annoying adapters is welcome.
Another bonus to this is unlike previous
USB C hubs I've used,
you can use both SD card slots
at the same time.
Saving even more time
as the UHS-ii slot is super fast.
The 85 Watt power delivery charges
my MacBook Pro 16 inch really fast
and it doesn't lose any power draw
when editing away for hours on end.
The Ethernet port just works,
but I'd love for it to be 10 Gigabit,
but I guess this is a cost
saving exercise.
I'm not a huge fan of mini display port
and having to buy new cables wasn't fun,
but it does work with my gaming monitor
which requires a mini display
port to HDMI cable,
but there have been issues
where the monitor hasn't woken up.
And I did reach out to OWC
about this problem with the waking up
and they said that it could be my cable.
I don't have the issue
when it's USBC to HDMI,
so they could be right here.
However, if you don't want to use
mini display port,
you can always use the spare
Thunderbolt cable
if your monitor supports it.
It's advertised to power two 4K displays
or one 5K display.
I have neither so I can only test
with my 144hz 1080P monitor.
Now we've gone over it.
I really want to state
how much I hate mini display port.
It's a dated port that shouldn't
be on this in my opinion of full size
display port or HDMI would have been
a much better inclusion
and it can be done.
OWC offer it on the more expensive
pro dock, but that dock is missing
some of the many useful ports
that come with this one.
Another issue I have is Thunderbolt,
is A1 cable solution so the cable
they include should at least be a meter.
50 centimeters is far too short
for most setups.
And I'd like to place
my computer wherever I want
without it being tide
to closely to the dock.
The price is also something
I questioned at $249.
Is it worth $10 more than a TS3?
Is one less USB C port
and the addition of a micro
SD card worth it?
I'm finding it really hard to decide.
I really like that it has a micro SD card
reader and the clean look of it,
but I hate mini display
port with a passion.
and is the Combi Jack better than two
separate microphone and headphone jacks?
If you use a headset
with a TRRS connector
like Apple wired earphones, I'd say yes.
But a lot of people
use the USB microphones now,
so do we even need one?
Especially as most people
have a computer with a headphone
and microphone Jack already.
I'm personally going
to keep using it for awhile
as it does speed up my workflow
and it looks great on my desk,
but I won't be throwing out
my TS3 just yet.
So what do you think?
Got any questions about it
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and I'll see you in the next one.
Thanks for watching.