I have been looking for a way to connect multiple monitors to my laptop for a very long time (solutions that won't cost an arm or leg, like those Magma express-card extenders). I was so used to having 3 monitors plugged into my laptop's docking station in XP era, but with the arrival of Vista it stopped working. I used the Tritton USB2VGA device back then, but they have never managed to deliver reliable drivers for Vista or now Windows 7. So I was stuck with only two screens for a few years (as none of the laptop docking ports I know offers three monitor ports, at best you get two -- VGA and DVI).
At the CES 2010 I've met with the CEO of Plugable and got a comprehensive overview of their Universal Docking Station product -- which prompted me to buy TWO of them, one for office usage, and another one for home. And I could not be happier with it! The guy used to run the Microsoft USB team, which boosted my confidence that the hardware drivers would be well maintained, and my installation experienced has proved it.
Once you plug this product into your PC's USB port (or laptop docking station's port as in my case) Windows finds the new hardware and just starts downloading and installing the drivers from the Windows Update. It finds about 6 or 7 hardware components (this docking station provides you with 4 USB ports, DVI monitor -- with VGA tranciever -- LAN port and Speakers/Microphone ports). So it is not a trivial device, and I've never seen the drivers installation running so smoothly. Within a minute or two I was prompted to accept some license agreement, and then was able to configure the layout of my monitors through the windows screen resolution box (pointing out which one is left, center and right and setting the resolutions). I did reboot, just to make sure :)
My laptop is running Windows 7 64 bit, it's Toshiba 700m. It drives a monitor through this USB station at 1280x1024 32bit, plus two more monitors are plugged into the laptop's port replicator (via VGA and DVI). Unlike the previous Tritton USB2VGA product I had experience with, this one is actually quite fast. It has its own grapnics chip inside and I could not notice any significant CPU workload increase when dragging some "active" windows with refreshable content (like Internet browser with Silverlight or Flash animation) into its monitor. You would not want to play a video in a USB-connected monitor, but I have tried anyway and it did play the 720p I've thrown at it (though it looked more like 720i -- you could see the video lines were interlaced). However it works seemlessly for Office applications (Outlook, Word, Excel) and for keeping an Internet browser window there -- which are my usage scenarios. It did drop my Windows Performance Score from 3.5 to 3.1, but I am quite fine with it. It does support the Windows Aero (the window bars are semi-transparent and you can see through them).
I also have my audio speakers plugged into this docking station, and it emmits clear sound without any problems. The Toshiba port replicator LACKS audio ports, so every time when plugging my laptop into it I had to plug the 3.5 audio connector directly into the laptop -- which was very annoying. Not anymore! I have not tried the LAN port yet, but given how smothly everything else works, would not expect any problems with it. Having the 4 extra USB 2.0 ports is also nice; all my USB wires (phone charger, headset, scanner etc.) are now always plugged, connecting the devices on a single dock, and between the original port replicator and this one I still have couple spare USB ports left.
If I remember correctly, the CEO told me you can plug more than one Dock to your PC for the benefit of all the extra monitors -- but I have not tried it.
Overall, I am VERY pleased with this product, and now enthusiasticly evangelize it to my colleagues at work. Check it out -- you won't regret it! Plugable USB 2.0 Universal Docking Station with DisplayLink DVI/VGA up to 1920x1080, Audio, Ethernet, and 4 Available High-Speed USB 2.0 Ports
I have windows 7. All I did was plug all my devices in then plug the docking station into the wall and lastly connect it to my computer. My computer found and installed all the correct drivers and the whole thing worked right from the start. With other docking stations I read lots of reviews about how they never really worked quite right. Not so with this one. It worked from minute one. It's really nice to have two monitors and use the big monitor for most things and then just have the laptop monitor as an accessory monitor. The only real drawback to it is that sometimes mouse movement on the docked monitor can be a bit sluggish. I guess that's the drawback of have all these other items docked through a single USB port.
Installed on 2/27/2010 this review written on 3/30/2010:
PROS:
* Considering that this is unit is one of the FEW available universal docking stations that works with Windows 7 (at this time and date). Know that I never tried using the USB to video connection but everything else seems to work as advertised.
* No drivers to manually install they will auto-install with your next Windows update (the manufacturer appears to be sleeping with Microsoft).
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CONS:
* The unit is VERY light and after connecting a bunch of cables to it, it becomes unbalanced and tends to tip or get pushed to one side or the other. Being a bit of a metal artist I cut a spare of 1/4 steel to size and glued it to its bottom (problem resolved). I wouldn't expect them to add a weight to future models because this would triple the shipping costs.
* The motherboard is NOT mounted tight up against its plastic housing so when you insert a USB cable its sort of loose and wiggley. I would think after a year of plugging things in and out the solder joints on the internal USB connectors would fatigue. Right now its new so who am I to say what it will or will not do. At any rate its basic structure feels cheesey (seems to be a Chinese proverb these days).
Basic Rating "If you need a dock that works Windows 7 you don't have alot of other choices" - Notebook Dock - Displaylink - Laptop Accessories - Usb'
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