I've found https://dancharblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/05/usb4-tb4-docks/ has a nice comparison of the many very similar (only slightly differentiated) thunderbolt 4 docks.

It notes that the Kingston, Sonnet, and others are rebrands of the Goodway DBD1100.

And updated yesterday to boot. This is awesome, thank you.

And it still costs as much as a computer.

As has often been said, that dock really is a computer.

I don't think that's a good thing though. No adapter/hub should be this complex IMO. I don't know how the ubiquity of USB got us to this point, it seems worse than before.

Because it's not USB it's Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt taps directly into the PCIe bus where USB doesn't. It only makes sense it is going to be much more than just a USB switch/hub. It's basically one of those PCIe expansion chasis that allowed extra expansion cards when your case only had 3 slots. Except, this is a nice neat little box on top of your desk.

> Customers: "We want one cable that does everything, super fast!"

> Engineers: "Okay... but it's going to be expensive and complicated..."

> Apple: "Money is insignificant next to the power of user experience."

> Intel: "Oh, people are actually using this thing we created?"

> USB-IF: "But us, b..."

> Intel: "So the USB won't let me B. Or let my TB be USB, so let me C."

> USB-IF: "You are again our hearts' delight."

> Customers: "Why is this so complicated? Remember when one connector meant one kind of cable? Those were great days."

And that's how we got here.

The original LaserWriter had

> Motorola 68000 CPU running at 12 MHz, 512 KB of workspace RAM, and a 1 MB frame buffer.

vs the Mac 128K with

> Motorola 68000 microprocessor running at 7.8336 MHz, connected to 128 KB RAM shared by the processor and the display controller

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K

> As has often been said, that dock really is a computer.

No it isn't, lol. Thudernbolt/usb-c docks are a solution to a made-up problem.

It is absolutely possible to have all the necessary ports on a modern slip laptop.

Just look at the Dell Latitude 7390:

- https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/dell-latitude-7390

- https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Latitude-7390-i5-8350U-SS...

I have a Dell Latitude laptop. It absolutely doesn't have enough video ports for the monitors on my desk. And while it's got enough ports for my USB peripherals (barely), it's certainly a lot more convenient to connect one cable than to connect 5-6, when I bring it back from using it as a laptop.

Which is great on the road. When I'm in the office using my laptop as a desktop I want one plug for everything and that is what usb-c gives me, so it is easy to grab just the laptop and go. (On my current laptop it is two usb-c plugs on one connector as usb-c doesn't allow enough power or data for one port to work - I have to use their official hub which who knows how long they will make).

Made-up problem? Maybe if you use your laptop as a desktop and never take it anywhere. I don’t want to plug in a dozen cables whenever I come home or go to work, or after each and every meeting.

Yeah, after buying a macbook pro I decided to buy an earlier generation of macbook air with some usable ports on it, there is no way I'm going to go around with an additional box. People complain MS is user-hostile but Apple does the same, just in their own way.