The best Thunderbolt docks for your laptop: CalDigit, Anker, Elgato, and more
Thunderbolt is finally catching up as more and more laptops are now offering the super-fast port. Thunderbolt 4 replaced Thunderbolt 3 last year and while it isn’t faster, there are upgrades in several other areas. The latest version defines new specifications to support full speeds of 40Gbps with cables of up to 2m in length, support for two 4K displays instead of one (or one 8K display), support at least one port for 100W power for laptop charging, allow all-docks to support wake from sleep, and provide DMA protection against Thunderspy attacks. Thunderbolt 4 also doubles the PCIe bandwidth to 32Gb/s which means more robust support for external GPUs.
One of the best use cases of Thunderbolt is that you can expand the I/O connectivity options on your desktop or laptop using a simple dock. This allows you to connect multiple devices including 4K displays, USB drives, audio devices, memory cards, and more. So here are some of the best Thunderbolt docks that you can buy. We’ve selected a mix of Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 so you can choose depending on your requirements.
The CalDigit Element Hub is one of the few Thunderbolt 4 docks available today that helps in expanding the number of Thunderbolt and USB Type-A ports on your laptop, Mac, or desktop PC. It is backward compatible with Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, and USB 4, and offers support for dual-4K or a single 8K monitor and power delivery of 60W to charge various devices including laptops, smartphones, etc. It is fairly compact and suitable for users who primarily need multiple fast USB ports.
