Plugable Thunderbolt 4 Dock with 100W Charging, Thunderbolt Certified, Laptop Docking Station Dual Monitor Single 8K or Dual 4K HDMI for Windows and Mac, 4X USB, Gigabit Ethernet (TBT4-UD5)

Review of Plugable Thunderbolt 4 Dock (TBT4-UD5) I bought this dock to replace a simple USB-C hub for my MacBook Pro — and the upgrade has been a game-changer. Before researching, I honestly didn’t know the difference between a USB-C hub and a Thunderbolt dock. I just thought both gave me extra ports. Now I understand why Thunderbolt docks cost more: they deliver full Thunderbolt speed, power delivery, and rock-solid reliability. Here’s what I’ve noticed since switching: Blazing-fast storage: My external Lexar SSD now runs at full Thunderbolt speed (with the right cable). File transfers are noticeably faster. Instant display wake-up: With my old hub, I had to mash the Return key and wait for my monitor to wake. With this dock, my external display wakes instantly. Future-proof video outputs: It supports dual 4K monitors or a single 8K monitor. I don’t own one yet, but it’s nice to know I’m ready for the future. Reliable Ethernet: The built-in 1 Gbps Ethernet port keeps my internet connection fast and stable. Plenty of ports: I get 4 USB-A ports (2x 5 Gbps + 2x 10 Gbps), a 10 Gbps USB-C port, and another Thunderbolt 4 port (40 Gbps). I can plug in all my external SSDs and hard drives — they mount instantly with no lag. Strong power delivery: The dock charges my MacBook Pro at 95 W and keeps it near 100% even under load. Extra convenience: The audio in/out jack works perfectly for my monitor speakers or a headset mic for voiceovers. The built-in microSD/SD reader let me ditch my old card reader and free up desk space. Overall, this dock feels solid, performs flawlessly, and keeps my MacBook and peripherals running fast and reliably. It’s not cheap, but the stability, speed, and convenience make it worth every penny.

I needed a new Thunderbolt dock after I had purchased a new MacBook Pro M5. While I was very happy with my CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 hub for my M1, it was not working with the external display with my M5 (it kept connecting and disconnecting). I found from a reliable article on the web that this was 'overall' the best and it did not disappoint. It works PERFECTLY. Somehow, the product pictures don't do it justice. The device is very sturdy (metal from what I can tell), and it doesn't feel 'cheap'. It's solid construction, and very high quality. I use my laptop it in clamshell mode as well as with my laptop open with an LG Ultrawide screen monitor. Nothing needed to be installed; I just plugged it, and it was detected right away. I have not tested every feature, but so far, HDMI, usb-c and USB-A plugs work w/o a hitch. Pictures attached.

Executive summary: I am a happy customer and I think this is a good product. Update to review: After I left the below review, Plugable's support team reached out to me. We were in the process of doing some troubleshooting and my next task was to install and run a diagnostic tool. There is a sensitive data concern (work laptop) so I am hesitant to download the tool. The hub seemed to reset earlier this week (not sure if it was something the hub did or if Windows might have done an update that impacted it). Since then it has been working perfectly. Plugable's support team was good to work with. I have never been certain whether this was a problem with the hub or the laptop. But since it is working now and I am confident in their support team, I am changing this to five stars. Original review: I am using this hub to run two monitors (while also using laptop display, so total of three screens) and a USB camera. Initially I was impressed - setup was easy and it somehow guessed the position of my monitors (one portrait and one landscape) so well that the mouse moved flawlessly from screen to screen. Since then...not so much. Every day it's a gamble. It inconsistently assigns the ID, so most days I have to go into Display Settings, swap the positioning, redo the portrait/landscape settings, and adjust the layout. Today my USB camera won't work. I have downloaded current drivers for the monitors and removed all old monitor settings, but cannot get the hub to consistently assign the monitor IDs. Sometimes I can cycle the power on it a couple times until it guesses the monitor assignments correctly. Sometimes after a sleep/wake on the laptop, the hub will only recognize one monitor. Rebooting the laptop solves that one. While I realize this could be a problem on the laptop end, it is a brand new Lenovo ThinkPad and I've had no other trouble with it. Two stars, since once the daily irritation is passed, it does work well for the rest of the day.

Update: the HDMI ports have both stopped working after less than three months. I have confirmed this with a second laptop. This is now an expensive USB hub. This works perfectly in my setup, although I discovered after I bought this that my laptop doesn't support Thunderbolt so I can't run both of my external monitors through this dock. Not the dock's fault of course. The dock doesn't seem to get notably hot in use though I'm not stressing it particularly with just one monitor that's not even 4K. My biggest gripe is that the uplink port - to connect the dock to the laptop - is on the *front*. This is stupid design. The front ports should only be for things that need to be plugged/unplugged frequently, so as to minimize cable clutter. In Plugable's defense this is very common among smaller, more portable docking stations, but there's enough room on the back for the uplink, so I'm taking away a star for this. Speaking of portability, the dock itself is reasonably compact but the power brick is bulky and heavy. I wouldn't really consider this a good option for a mobile setup.

It works with my mouse, keyboard, monitor, printer, scanner, and sound system. But it doesn’t initially work smoothly as it should, because I have to hit, Ctrl-Alt-Delete a bunch of times to get it to work, and sometimes I have to Restart to get it to work.

Works great. We now purchased five of them for our little office. Had a small interaction with their service department prompt courteous and great follow-up. Highly recommend this product does what it says makes it easy to operate multiple screens for the laptop

Excelente! Llego antes de lo esperado, pero lo que mas me gusto, es que era exactamente lo que estaba buscando. Funcionó a la perfección con mi Macbook Pro 16 M4 Max! Excelente producto MUY recomendable!

Plugable TBT4-UD5 Thunderbolt 4 Dock. Got a new laptop with two ThunderBolt4 (TB4, aka. USB4) ports. So, went hunting for a dock to take full advantage. The field is very limited though, and this one seems the best, better even than the "big brother" of it from Plugable. This was the only dock I found that had another Thunderbolt port (on the front, even) for peripherals. As well as a pair of 5gbs USB3 ports on front, and several 10gbs ports on the rear. This is a great dock and is working well here. My only(!) complaint is the dumb front-mounted port for the laptop cable. Lots of other docks make the same mistake, dunno why? It belongs at the REAR, guys!! Otherwise all quite good! There's a white version that is sometimes lower priced: B0FGFW5FVD and also the Kensington AD2010T4 dock appears to be exactly the same thing as this one. EDIT: More than a year on, and it's going strong here and I'm exceptionally pleased with it. No issues. Loving the extra TB4 jack on the front, for backups to external NVMe drives. Solved the front-mounted laptop cable issue with a right-angled TB4 cable that easily routes to the rear and keeps things tidy. Note that I use this almost exclusively with Kubuntu Linux 24.04 on the laptop. Everything works very well with no fuss. Added a photo, with a KVM switch sitting on top.

Works great with my M1 work mac and M4 personal mac. I've had no persistent issues. Every now and then my mac won't display on my monitor when I plug into the dock, but I just need to plug the cable in and out - which honestly, is really good from my typically experience using docks.

In theory, this device should be wonderful. It has all the outputs and inputs one could ever hope for, but sadly, it also seems to have a mind of its own and most of the time, it’s on strike. Perhaps I’m not paying it well enough. I still need a device that does what this one is supposed to do, but this is certainly not it.