Docking station recommendations please.

[GSDog]

I have a Dell XPS 13 (9305) on order and I’d like to purchase a docking station.

Admittedly I’m a little unsure with regards to the power output required for my setup (and potential future setup), and subsequently what is best suited for my needs, which are;-

1. To initially be used with a 34” 4K widescreen monitor, alongside the laptop screen at times.
2. Potential for another 4K monitor at a later date.
3. Needs to have USB-C and plenty of USB ports for charging phones etc.
4. Able to work with other laptop brands (my work laptop is an HP).

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

 

[momo56]

I use the Dell WD19TB. It's 180W so more than enough for your machine. The dock itself has a power button that turns the laptop on.
2 USBC ports, 1 thunderbolt and 3 USBA ports. 2 displayports and a HDMI.

My old work laptop has a HP elitebook 840 and worked with that too as a USBC dock.

edit: also not sure about the iGPU limitations. But with the HP I could only have 3 screens at a time, 2 @1440p and the 3rd could only go to 1080p despite being a 1440p screen.

 

[GSDog]

I use the Dell WD19TB. It's 180W so more than enough for your machine. The dock itself has a power button that turns the laptop on.
2 USBC ports, 1 thunderbolt and 3 USBA ports. 2 displayports and a HDMI.

My old work laptop has a HP elitebook 840 and worked with that too as a USBC dock.

edit: also not sure about the iGPU limitations. But with the HP I could only have 3 screens at a time, 2 @1440p and the 3rd could only go to 1080p despite being a 1440p screen.

Thanks, it seems to be the one recommended most. I didn’t realise that it worked with other brands.

 

[danielpugh]

That's a good call with wd19tb. Generally I'd say thunderbolt 3 dock. There may be some proprietary stuff between Dells for charging to provide extra power (was the case with the previous tb16).

I have a tb16 that has been solid since covid started on my XPS 10th and now 11th gen (9310). Dell have started pushing a usb d6000. Many reports of problems. Partially because it compresses image to be able to use the lower bandwidth compared to thunderbolt. A friend noted that several hdmi monitors simply didn't detect. Also the compression apparently uses the CPU. So beware the dell recommended one. For some reason dell have many issues with docks over the last few years (tb16 was pretty pants).

Also beware that the new thunderbolt 4 docks use usbc to connect to the monitor (no hdmi/displayport). The friend in question ended up using starcom dock thunderbolt 3 dock, which is very similar in looks to the dell one, just because it was cheaper. It worked absolutely fine with his 9310.