I use the official dock and just leave it at home attached to my TV. Are there any advantages to using third-party docks over the official ones? The official one seems to work well--it charges my Switch when unused (I actually mostly use the dock as 'storage' when I am not using it) and provides me with the option to play on my TV (not that I do that often). I also have a nice bag which I occasionally use to take my dock (and power/HDMI cables) with me.

Yes, compare the portability of https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JK9DFKH and https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D64QLQ1 with having to lug around the official dock and adapter. If you want to take your Switch with you to plug into other people's TVs, it's night and day.

I have a third party dock about the size of zippo that plugs into the USB-C port, and has another USB-C port for charging, HDMI for picture, and a 'regular USB port for pairing and whatnot. it's great to bring along to friends so we can play on their tv without having to package my entire dock!

3rd party docks are so much smaller and so much better. Makes it so much easier to bring along the dock on a trip so you can connect it to the TV in a hotel room, for example.

Get the Genki Covert Dock. [1]

Its perfect for portable gaming.

1. https://www.genkithings.com/products/covert-dock

Wow! Thank you. I don't think I can justify the purchase, already having bought a fairly small third-party dock and power adapter, but hopefully someone else sees this. The Genki is the obvious choice, assuming it works correctly.