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Best CalDigit Dock for MacBooks

10:37 video

One thing that still bugs people about Apple laptops is the reliance on a few USB-C or Thunderbolt ports. CalDigit makes several hubs and docks, so which should you get? I’ve used my M1 MacBook Pro as my main device for months: sometimes alone, sometimes at a desk setup with displays, speakers, card readers and external drives, and sometimes at my work office with a different set of displays and accessories. CalDigit sent me these docks to test, but this video is not sponsored and no one at CalDigit reviewed it before posting; I made it because I use and like these products.

Hub vs. dock

A hub creates additional connections for a specific port type (a USB hub gives you four or eight more USB ports). A dock expands the types of ports, for example from Thunderbolt to display, Ethernet and audio. A hub gives you more of one thing; a dock expands your connection options. (All display specs below depend on your computer: the M1 MacBook Pro, Air and Mac mini only support a single external display through Thunderbolt or USB-C, so check your computer’s specs and CalDigit’s website.)

CalDigit SOHO

A small-office/home-office Gen 2 USB-C dock with up to 10 Gbps speeds. On the front: a USB-A and a USB-C (both 10 Gbps) and dual UHS-II SD card readers, so you can read and write full-size and microSD cards at once. On the back: HDMI and DisplayPort, able to drive two 4K displays at 30 Hz or one 4K display at 60 Hz. It can be completely bus powered, perfect for your bag: presentations in a conference room, quick file transfers with a USB drive or the SD readers, even powering a USB-C SSD like the CalDigit Tuff Nano. It can also sit at your desk and pass power through from your MacBook charger, even the 96 W charger for the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

CalDigit USB-C HDMI Dock

For a 16-inch MacBook Pro workhorse that needs multiple displays and ports: up to 94 W of power to the MacBook, so you can edit, render, virtualize or game. On the back: two HDMI ports that can push dual 4K extended displays at 60 Hz, the Thunderbolt connection, two USB-A ports and Ethernet. On the front: a USB-A port, a 10 Gbps USB-C port, a UHS-II SD card reader and an audio in/out jack. If you prefer DisplayPort to HDMI, the USB-C Pro Dock has the same ports with DisplayPort and a slightly lower max charge of 85 W.

CalDigit TS3 Plus

The “Swiss Army knife” of Thunderbolt docks, with 15 ports: on the front, a UHS-II SD slot, separate audio in and out jacks, a 5 Gbps USB-C and a USB-A (the front allotment 99% of people would need); on the back, four more USB-A ports, Thunderbolt in and out, a 10 Gbps USB-C port, DisplayPort, 1 Gbps Ethernet and optical audio out. It powers the MacBook at up to 87 W, and can lie horizontally or stand vertically.

CalDigit Element Hub

The brand new Thunderbolt 4/USB4 hub with 8 ports and up to 40 Gbps, fully powered, delivering up to 60 W to your MacBook in a tiny package (it can even act as a standalone charger with no laptop connected). On the front: four 10 Gbps USB-A ports that run most external USB SSDs at full speed, or thumb drives, mouse dongles, SD readers, phone or watch chargers. On the back: three Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports for displays (directly over USB-C and Thunderbolt, or with CalDigit’s HDMI or DisplayPort adapters, in versions matching the aluminum enclosure), faster storage (an NVMe drive from Samsung at over 2,500 MB/s) or an eGPU on an Intel MacBook. Its power is that it can become the ports you need: three audio interfaces, two displays, a Thunderbolt array and a thumb drive, with no SD reader or Ethernet needed.

Mixing and matching

If no single dock does exactly what you need, combine them. My daily desk setup is the M1 MacBook Pro with a TS3 Plus connected to my speakers, display and SSD. When editing, I use multiple SD cards at once, so I also connect the SOHO to the TS3 Plus and can import media from both cameras and my audio recorder simultaneously.

Recommendations

  • Most people: the TS3 Plus. DisplayPort, USB-A and USB-C, Thunderbolt, SD, Ethernet, audio and 87 W of charging.
  • A 16-inch MacBook Pro you push hard: the USB-C HDMI Dock, with 94 W and two HDMI displays at 60 Hz.
  • In the bag, on the go and for work meetings: the SOHO, especially for the dual SD card readers.
  • None of those does exactly what you want: the Element Hub, to give it the ports your workflow needs, or add it to another dock.

Do you have one of these docks, and does it do everything you need? See my Element Hub review for more.

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Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

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