HP Thunderbolt Dock 230W G2 3TR87UT#ABA

Ordered this to replace a dell docking station that I was having issues with and the was underpowered for my HP laptop. This docking station is compact and looks good on my desk. I was presently surprised that the order included a power brick so I don’t have to worry about having to unplug from the docking station and can keep the original in my bag and just grab the laptop to be on the go.

The docking station comes with 2 Display outputs and an VGA output. It would have been preferrable that the VGA was an HDMI output. Had to order another cable to make this work with my monitor setup since not all my monitors had Display port inputs.

Overall I have been very pleased with this docking station and it has more than enough extra USB and Type-C ports to free up slots on the actual laptop.

I had no previous issue with HP stations but the usb-c continued to short out after some time and stopped connecting to my pc. A smaller and cheaper station that I had longer ironically is what i use now. Great product, but with heavy usage may be an issue for some I guess.

I had so much frustration trying to get “HP ZBook 150W Thunderbolt 3 Docking” to work for my HP Zbook but finally gave up. BSOD about 40% of time and screen flickers like crazy. I finally trashed it and bought this and for 2 days I haven’t had any issue so I am really hoping this will continue. I work from home and need to make sure my system’s stable for 8 hours a day. I do not like the placement of combo cable but other than it seems stable with Zoobk G8 so far.

I had some driver issues when trying to get the docking station to work with my monitors. I had a dedicated and an integrated graphics driver and had to specify which driver to use to get my monitors to work with the docking station.

For starters simply finding the correct dock for my new HP laptop turned out to be a bad science project. NO description of any kind on HP websites to specifically define to customers WHICH port replicator goes with WHICH laptop. In fact the HP website is nothing short of a labyrinth of opaque worthless instructions and endless do-loops sending you to more and more useless pages with NO opportunity to ever figure out how to speak to a human being. This after paying over $300 for a docking station.

Device often does not boot properly. IF you plug in the dock to the computer (with computer lid down) the device allows boot through bitlocker then the screen goes blank because the computer is only projecting to the built-in monitor. Once you open the laptop you can boot into windows however now the laptop will NOT recognize ANY of the attached screens. You need to shut completely down and reboot with the laptop open and NO docking station attached.

Disconnecting the computer also causes major hassles. I have 3 large monitors and when I either disconnect or re-connect, it’s often a matter of minutes before this desperately slow device decides to wake up. And that’s if it wakes up at all.

Getting all of the proper drivers on this installed was also a major hassle. No matter how much IT support I got from my organization the IT group readily admits this device is notoriously bad.

Computer lag once the dock is attached is EXTREME on all screens including the laptop built-in screen. The dock is either totally underpowered or the computer cannot handle it. In any case the dock sometimes renders the entire setup nearly useless. This is perhaps the single most infuriatingly bad part of this entire disastrous design. It’s possible that some rocket scientist at HP decided to put a graphics card in the replicator itself and it is over-riding the laptop (I have a Zbook G4). After perhaps 5-6 months of trying to get this thing to run I’ve totally given up hope that this workstation will fulfill even the most marginal expectations. Even typing up something in MS Word or Outlook is often near impossible simply because the screen is so phenomenally slow to update. And when it does update, often 30% of the keystrokes are missing. Really HP? Thanks for a trip back to the computing stone ages.

Cables that work fine with the laptop refuse to work at all with the dock. These included display port to DP, HDMI to HDMI, HDMI to Display Port, VGA, and impossibly – the NEW USB C to HDMI cable ordered specifically to work with this dock.

The top of the device is also the power button. As others may have mentioned every time you try to connect something or check a connection it’s often the case you inadvertently turn the device off. Aesthetics are meaningless when they cause such confusion and / or frustration.

There is very little about this product and its quality that is redeeming. Especially in light of the absurdly high price and the fact that for some laptops this is your only HP solution. This HP product is a disgrace to the brand. I guess what makes me the most upset is that docking stations have always been one of the most mundane innocuous computer peripherals out there. You simply set them up one time and they work. Historically they were also relatively cheap. HP has really taken this design in every conceivably bad direction possible. Poor design, poor performance, and a contemptibly bad price.

Pros: Maybe the combo cable? But then again most docking stations connect with relative ease so this is not a big gain.

Suggestions for improvement. Based on all of the issues I’ve encountered with this device the only thing I could think of for improvement would be to somehow add about 700 lbs to the weight of it. Perhaps then it could be effectively used as a boat anchor.

Never again will I own an HP computer UNLESS my corporation requires it. Note: I’m a HUGE fan of all the HP printers I’ve ever owned. Went with a Brother brand about 10 years ago and after about 5 years I tossed it and went back to HP. Maybe HP just needs to stick with printers…