Anker Docking Station 13-in-1 Thunderbolt 3

The Good: A small thunderbolt 3 dock by Anker. The concept of a small dock seems to be mostly avoided but has been tackled by Anker in a good looking, compact package.

The Bad: Poor description of specifications for the dock make it hard to find out if this is a good solution for you.

The bottom Line: While it is hard to check if this product is for you, this is a Thunderbolt 3 hub with the Anker badge on it. If it doesn’t fit your needs, its easy to return. If it breaks (within warranty), top notch customer service will care for you.

What comes in the box:

The dock
A Thundebolt 3 USB C cable (Interfaces with dock and Thunderbolt device)
A power brick (Interfaces with dock and power cable)
A Power cable (Interfaces with outlet and power brick)

The number one thing that has kept me from purchasing a Thunderbolt 3 hub is the lack of reliability, compatibility, or longevity that tends to be associated with this technology. We all have setups of varying complexity and I am hoping this helps someone with similar needs as mine.

For starters, from the instruction manual, these are the listed ports and some specs:

Front Pannel
1. SD 4.0 Card Slot
2. Micro SD Card Slot
3. Top USBC 10GB/s, 5V/0.9A (4W)
4. Bottom USBC 10GB/s, 5V/3A (15W), 9V/2A (18W)
5. 3.5mm Jack
6. USBA 5GB/s, 5V/1.5A (7.5W)

Back Pannel
1. Top, USBC Thunderbolt 3 port, Downstream 5V/3A max, daisy chain up to 5 devices.
2. Bottom, USBC Thunderbolt 3 port, Upstream [5V/3A (15W), 9V/3A(27W), 15V/3A (45W), 20V/4.25A (85W)]
3. HDMI 2.0 4k60
4. 3x USBA 5B/s
5. Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbps

Speed: 40 GB/s
Input: 20V/9A (180W)
Compatable with OSX and WinOS
4.9 x 3.5, 1.6 in; 17.3Oz
125.8 x 88.5 x 41.9 mm; 490g

Context: 61W draw from a MacBook Pro, 2560 x 1440 monitor, mechanical keyboard, occasional SD card, 3.5mm Jack, USBC charge usage, USBA peripheral/storage use.

Some things I have noticed regarding front panel ports:
The most interesting thing comes in the form of the top (3) and bottom (4) USBC outs. They both have the same data rate, however, the power provided is different. If you want to charge your device, use the bottom USBC port and a cable capable of handling the power delivery.
Using the 3.5mm Jack (5) means that you have to switch your output device. This is something that must be specified in your OS and had to learn about mid zoom meeting.

Some things I have noticed regarding back panel ports:
If you are using the downstream (1) port, make sure your device is actually making use of the Thunderbolt protocol, otherwise, this will only work at USB 2.0 data speeds, effectively invalidating the reason for purchasing this dock. I used this port for my USBC to Display port connection and it works flawlessly.
The power draw from the upstream (2) port is probably using the 45W protocol since my device is limited to 61W charging. However, my usage does not seem to prevent my device from charging faster than it discharges.
The USBA ports (4) do not have a power rating associated with them. However, they supply enough power to run my mechanical keyboard with backlight without issue.
The ethernet (5) connector is Gigabit. The connector does not have any specifications attached to it for Power over Ethernet (PoE) or any kind of IEEE 802.3 apart from speeds achievable.

Overall, this is a great Thunderbolt hub for a simple user like myself and I hope that it remains simple as I add more monitors in the future. I enjoy the convenience and simplicity of the hub and how plug and play my computer has become. I also like the small footprint of the dock, taking minimal desk space especially compared with those large hubs that seem to have a horizontal support. I will make an effort to update this as things pop and longevity milestones are hit.

This does what it says on the tin. I’ve been using it to swap between my M1 Mac and Linux laptop with a single USB-C cable. It runs both of my monitors. One over USB-C at 4k, the other over HDMI in 1080p. The wired ethernet port and USB-A ports all work well. I also have a USB 3 hub plugged into one of the USB-A ports which functions as it should. It supplies adequate charging. Everything works on both my Mac and Linux machine.

Some things to know going in:

– It will not just work when you plug it in. Both MacOS and Linux will require you to authorize a new Thunderbolt accessory. MacOS likes to hide this under other active windows so it’s easy to miss. To make this more aggravating the hub will “kind of” work without needing authorization. So your monitors will come on and your machine will charge, but neither the wired network or your USB accessories will work. When this happens to you make sure to find that authorization prompt and authorize the device. This isn’t Anker’s fault, it’s just how MacOS/Linux are.

– It gets hot, fast. You need to put a small fan near it to blow cool air across it. Heat kills electronics. IMO this is why so many of these devices end up dead inside 30 days. This thing has no active cooling or fans of any kind. It needs them.

Overall I’m happy with it. It performs as advertised. I wish it had a built in fan.

I was on the fence about buying this for a long time, as it’s expensive and the only real advantage you get is needing only one Thunderbolt cable to your MacBook. Other docks are cheaper and provide similar ports, and this only provides one HDMI port.

But I’m super happy with this purchase. This is one of the nicest Anker products I’ve owned. It’s smaller than I expected. It’s super dense, super heavy, and feels sturdy and extremely well built. It handles everything I’ve thrown at it, powering my 4K screen at a smooth, reliable 60fps, while powering a ton of USB peripherals (USB-A and USB-C), gigabit ethernet, analog headphone out, and more. I bought this model specifically because I wanted to be able to daisy-chain Thunderbolt peripherals, and that works perfectly as well. (I have an Apple Thunderbolt-to-FireWire 800 adapter plugged into the Thunderbolt port, powering some older audio gear, and like everything else, it works perfectly.) My 2020 16″ MacBook Pro’s battery stays at 100% over an 8 hour workday at full brightness, despite this dock only putting out 85W over Thunderbolt.

My only gripes:
– This dock gets _hot_. Very hot. Hot enough that I’d be worried about leaving this in an unventilated area, or near a window in the sun, for instance. The case is made of metal, and it has no fan, so it can only radiate heat via the case. I’ve got mine sitting in a metal Rain Design mStand, which seems to help act as a bit of an external heatsink.
– It’d be great if this had an extra HDMI port, so I didn’t need to use a USB-C-to-HDMI or Thunderbolt-to-HDMI adapter to power a second screen. But given that those can be as cheap as $10, this isn’t a big issue.
– The analog audio out has a very strange small quirk – when audio playback starts, one channel starts a split-second before the other. My guess is that this was done to reduce noise when no audio is playing, or maybe reduce power usage, but it’s just barely noticeable.
– $250 is still a bit much for only having to use one cable to power and connect your MacBook. I got this on sale and have no regrets, but would have hesitated a bit more at the full price point.

NOTE: Anker will not service/warranty this product if purchased through SUPERSALESUSA. SUPERSALESUSA have yet to respond to my warranty claim.

When it was working it worked pretty well. It did seem to have a re-connection lag when waking a computer from sleep. The device still charges my Mac and connects me to my external display but my Mac cannot recognize external drives or ethernet connections that are connected to the Anker.