Plugable TBT-UDT3 review: best value Thunderbolt 5 docking station

Best Prices Today: Plugable Thunderbolt 5 Docking Station (TBT-UDT3)

Backwards compatible with earlier versions of Thunderbolt and all the way back to USB-C, investing in Thunderbolt 5 now is the best way to future-proof your desktop technology and be ready for super-fast connectivity even if you don’t have a Thunderbolt 5-ready Mac right now.

A docking station puts a lot of connections within arm’s reach, and the Plugable Thunderbolt 5 dock hosts a bunch of fast ports from 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5 itself to 2.5Gb Ethernet.

Design

The silvery Plugable Thunderbolt 5 dock can be placed in either a horizontal position or vertically through the included stand.

The aluminum chassis feels solid, and we appreciate the on-off button at the front. While your laptop’s power management should regulate how much power is input, we like the reassurance that the battery isn’t constantly being filled up even when not in use for hours.

It measures 6.9 (tall or long) x 3.1 x 1.6 inches (17.6 x 7.8 x 4.2cm) and weighs 1.5lbs (692g).

The ports are where they should be with the laptop-connecting upstream Thunderbolt 5 port placed at the back, rather than untidily at the front.

Front facing is an audio jack port, and two fast card readers, as well as a 10Gbps USB-A port, the audio jack and a power button.

At the back is the real business end of the dock. Most important are the two downstream Thunderbolt 5 ports you’ll be using to connect a monitor or two or other devices. These sit alongside the upstream TB5 port that you will connect your laptop to using the included 1m TB5 cable. There’s another downstream TB5 port on the front, where you might expect a USB-C port—more on which later.

No DisplayPort or HDMI port for attaching extra screens to your laptop? Plugable offers the downstream TB5 ports for any monitor connection rather than a dedicated video port.

Many monitors today can be connected via USB-C so using the TB5 ports doesn’t require an HDMI or DisplayPort adapter cable. If you do want to attach a display via one of the two video connections you will need to add such an adapter, but these aren’t expensive and Plugable doesn’t force you into a DP vs HDMI choice.

CalDigit does take that approach, preferring DisplayPort over HDMI for its superior refresh-rate options. This does allow for the possibility of a wasted port if all your displays are USB-C based. Plugable’s solution is more flexible.

That said, we’d have preferred all three downstream TB5 ports to be placed at the back. Having one at the front means you’ll either be back in the messy cable situation when connecting devices or rendering a powerful TB5 port into a glorified USB-C. Ideally, we’d have three downstream ports at the back and a spare (higher-wattage) USB-C at the front so you could use it to fast-charge your iPhone. Plugable’s Thunderbolt ports are limited to 15W, and Apple recommends at least 18W for iPhone fast charging.

Power

The external power supply is rated at 180W, which is enough to supply the 140W PD 3.1 upstream TB5 port to the laptop that can fast-charge even the top-end 16-inch MacBook Pro.

If charging your laptop at full pelt, that leaves under 40W for charging other devices via the dock, which will require some of the power itself.

With no extra USB-C ports but three USB-A ports this lack of spare power shouldn’t run the dock too hard, but it does leave the port outputs potentially underpowered for some needs. You can’t fast-charge phones or other devices via USB-A, and even the top-rated one maxes out at just 7.5W—enough for your Apple Watch or AirPods but not an iPhone.

Plugable isn’t alone in this regard. The similarly ported 180W OWC Thunderbolt 5 Dock is the same. It’s possible that they use a similar chipset that doesn’t allow for a higher-powered USB-C port, but it’s the one thing I miss on both.

To get a more powerful Thunderbolt 5 dock you’ll have to dig deeper… quite a lot deeper. The much more expensive CalDigit TS5 Plus pushes as much power from its ports as it can—even the TB5 ports can each output 36W—and boasts a massive 330W power supply.

The Sonnet Echo 13 Thunderbolt 5 Dock goes furthest with a front-facing 60W USB-C port but falls down if pushed too much as the power supply is, like the Plugable and OWC, limited to 180W. To be fair, most docks don’t push further than this 180W rating.

Specs and features

• One upstream Thunderbolt 5 port (80Gbps, 140W)
• Three downstream Thunderbolt 5 ports (80Gbps, 15W)
• Two USB-A ports (10Gbps, 4.5W)
• One USB-A port (5Gbps, 7.5W)
• Ethernet (2.5Gb)
• UHS-II SD card reader (312MBps)
• UHS-II microSD card reader (312MBps)
• 3.5mm combo audio jack (front)
• 180W power supply

While 11 ports may seem underwhelming compared to the CalDigit TS5 Plus’s almost ridiculous 20, the Plugable TB5 dock is not aimed at the very highest level of studio professional and so nestles in a sweet spot that will suit most business and home users.

Thunderbolt 5, of course, is the star of the show.

It represents a big jump up in terms of potential performance compared to Thunderbolt 4, which was not such a leap over Thunderbolt 3.

Thunderbolt 5 (TB5) doubles data bandwidth from 40Gbps to bi-directional 80Gbps, with 120Gbps possible as enhanced Bandwith Boost for video and high-refresh displays. Instead of 80Gbps of bidirectional bandwidth, the dock can operate in an asymmetric mode to transmit up to 120Gbps and then receive up to 40Gbps.

Benefiting high-performance storage, PCIe throughput increases from 32Gbps to 64Gbps. Power delivery goes up from TB4’s 100W to 240W.

The three legacy USB-A ports include two at 10Gbps and one at 5Gbps. The 5Gbps port offers the higher but not very high 7.5W of output.

The two card readers are both SD 4.0 UHS-II so can handle 312MBps transfer speeds, notably faster than Apple’s MacBook Pro 250MBps SDXC card slot. These portable storage cards aren’t just for photographers. You can use them to significantly increase your MacBook‘s storage for as little as $100 for 1TB.

Video options

Apple users are a little hard done by when using most docking stations. While Windows users can with the Plugable TBT-UDT3 add two 8K displays at 120Hz—or one 8K displays at 144Hz)—Apple limits Thunderbolt docks to just one or two 6K at 60Hz when connected to a Mac.

Plugable is being more circumspect about its dock’s Windows video capabilities than OWC, which claims more for Windows users—up to three 8K displays at 60Hz, or two 8K displays at 120Hz. As of now, there actually aren’t any Thunderbolt 5 Windows systems that support three simultaneous displays over a TB5 connection. Plugable therefore chose to advertise the more realistic dual-display configuration, rather than feature something that isn’t yet possible. However, Plugable fully expects this dock to support triple displays for Windows TB5 laptops,

To add more than two monitors you’ll need to use the MacBook’s own HDMI port or one of the Thunderbolt ports. Alternatively, look for a dock that supports DisplayLink— third-party software that allows Macs (even plain M1 and M2 MacBook Airs) to attach multiple monitors via one dock.

As it happens, Plugable has one of the best of these—its recently released UD-7400PD dock that can handle up to five monitors in Extended Mode, surely enough for just about everyone.

Network speeds

Most of us are still tethered to traditional Gigabit Ethernet (1Gb) networks, but faster home and office networks at 2.5Gb, 5Gb or 10Gb speeds are becoming more commonplace.

Most new Thunderbolt docks now, like the Plugable TB5 Dock, include at least a 2.5 gigabit Ethernet (2.5GbE) port rather than 1GbE. To take advantage of this 2.5x network speed boost your network does need to be rated at least as fast, but it is backwards compatible so you can use it on any network.

I think we’re at the stage now when every dock should be at least 2.5GbE.

Price

At just $299.99 the Plugable Thunderbolt 5 Dock (TBT-UDT3) is the best-value Thunderbolt 5 dock we have tested. If you live outside of the U.S. or Canada, though, you’ll have to wait for wider international availability.

Its closest competition in terms of technical specifications is the OWC Thunderbolt 5 Dock, which is priced at $329.99. There are a few differences—the OWC’s 10Gbps USB-A ports output a tiny bit more power and Windows users get to hook up three displays if they want to—but you get just about everything with the Plugable dock that you do with the OWC at a lower price. We think that the Plugable is better looking and can stand vertically as well as lie horizontally, which gives it the nod and an Editor’s Choice award.

The next steps up take the prices out of many pockets. The CalDigit TS5 ($369) and TS5 Plus ($499) have more ports and power, and the Sonnet Echo 13 Thunderbolt 5 Dock (from $439) comes with integrated SSD storage.

Check out the competition for the best Thunderbolt 5 dock for MacBook.

Should you buy the Plugable Thunderbolt 5 Dock?

This is the best-value Thunderbolt 5 dock that we have tested. It has enough ports for most people and offers excellent value for money for the latest performance-boosting tech speed updates.

Best Prices Today: Plugable Thunderbolt 5 Docking Station (TBT-UDT3)