Ugreen Revodok Pro 13-in-1 review

Is it a USB-C docking station? Is it a dongle? The Ugreen Revodok Professional 13-in-1 Triple Show Docking Station tends extra towards the latter, however it’s an indication of issues to return: shrinking sizes, however with extra highly effective capabilities.

This dock (hub?) consists of three show ports, all providing 4K show capabilities (two at 60Hz, and a 3rd at 30Hz). Nonetheless, the USB-C twine is constructed into the dock itself, and also you’ll want to produce your personal (USB-C) energy twine to route by it.

Neither Ugreen nor Home windows Activity Supervisor recognized it as a DisplayLink dock, which means that it might be utilizing a generic type of compression referred to as HBR3 (Excessive Bit Charge 3) with DSC (Show Stream Compression), which is constructed into the DisplayPort spec. That’s a little bit of an issue: As Dell has famous beforehand, most Eleventh-gen Intel Core and newer PCs ought to help this know-how, and thus this dock. Nevertheless it’s not 100% assured.

Nonetheless, this dock offers nearly the entire capabilities of a extra highly effective, dearer Thunderbolt dock, however at an enormously cheaper worth. We’ve used this evaluation to tell our roundup of one of the best USB-C docks.

Ugreen manufactures some very attention-grabbing USB-C {hardware}, however its attain is restricted: You’ll be able to buy it from Amazon for $129.99 and that’s about it. American consumers can’t even buy this dock from Ugreen itself, because it solely provides the product by way of its European web site for £129.99. UK consumers can get it from Amazon, too.

After which there’s the title: Whereas Ugreen calls it the Revodok Professional, on the field it’s known as the USB-C Hub A number of Show Adapter, or the 13-in-1 USB-C Multifunction Adapter, or the CM681. (For those who’re searching for different purchasing websites, seek for “Ugreen 15978,” its mannequin quantity.) It seems to be an up to date, extra compact model of the Ugreen CM655 USB-C dock, which I actually favored however now appears to solely be out there from Ugreen immediately.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Design & Construct

The worth, although, is intriguing, and so is the scale: 6.5 inches by 2.75 inches by about 0.75 inches thick, which is an inch or two longer and wider than what I’d affiliate with a conventional dongle. At about 0.7 kilos, although, it’s nonetheless comparatively gentle. For those who journey with transportable shows or have two ready at your vacation spot, I’d positively contemplate this dock to be a journey possibility.

Particularly, the Ugreen Revodok Professional 13-in-1 Triple Show Docking Station consists of an SD/microSD 3.0 slot on one facet, subsequent to a 3.5mm audio jack, alongside three USB-A ports (two supporting 10Gbps, and one 5Gbps). There’s a 10Gbps USB-C port, as effectively.

On the opposite facet, the Ugreen Revodok Professional 13-in-1 Triple Show Docking Station consists of the enter port to your USB-C charger, able to accepting 100W into the dock itself. Then there are two unspecified HDMI ports and a DisplayPort, able to DP1.4. Gigabit Ethernet and one other 5Gbps USB-A port spherical out the port choice. None of them, it ought to be famous, are rated for powering a smartphone; that’s one concession these kind of unpowered docks make.

The opposite concession is the brief, docked (although braided) twine, which is about 9.5 inches lengthy. If the twine isn’t lengthy sufficient to stretch to your laptop computer, or within the unlikely risk the USB-C connection wears out or will get bent, you’ll want to switch your complete dock. On my desk setup, the place I perch my laptop computer on a keyboard tray, the brief twine size positively required that I place the dock at a clumsy angle.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Efficiency

In a phrase, efficiency was wonderful — save for the charging. The dock equipped simply 1.45W out of the USB-C port and a couple of.5W out of the USB-A ports — that ought to be sufficient to energy most if not all peripheral gadgets. (Home windows failed to acknowledge an exterior spinning exhausting drive on one event, however it labored each different time.) Smartphones, although, will simply trickle cost.

I used a charger rated at 100W to energy my take a look at laptop computer, and 72W was transferred to the laptop computer after going by the Ugreen dock. That may be an issue with some laptops whose chargers don’t present just a little additional charging oomph to accommodate a dock like this. (My Thunderbolt-equipped take a look at laptop computer generated sufficient energy by the Thunderbolt port to maintain the dock powered up with out an exterior charger.) Thought the dock is manufactured from plastic, I seen no thermal points.

I seen no anomalies when connecting to Ethernet, although I used to be completely happy my RJ45 cable clipped in, due to the dock’s brief cable. There have been no audio glitches. There have been no glitches in any respect in connecting to or disconnecting from exterior shows, both — the soundness was wonderful.

Weirdly, USB-C/DisplayLink docks constantly outperform Thunderbolt docks in my storage assessments, and the Ugreen Revodok Professional 13-in-1 Triple Show Docking Station was per that: 145MB/s on a linked SSD, versus 130MB/s or so for the common Thunderbolt dock. Streaming efficiency throughout Ethernet was terrific, with an imperceptible 9 out of 10,000 frames dropped. The dock carried out principally the identical even whereas my storage take a look at was carried out within the background. Copying a 30GB folder with a bunch of multimedia information and different paperwork from the SSD by the dock to my laptop computer accomplished in a few minute, which is common.

The dock is restricted to 60Hz at 4K decision, nevertheless. Whereas I don’t have an 8K monitor to check, our 4K take a look at show does permit as much as 144Hz resolutions. Nonetheless, unplugging the second 4K show, leaving solely the one 144Hz 4K show, didn’t permit for greater than 60Hz.

Must you purchase the Ugreen Revodok Professional 13-in-1 Triple Show Docking Station?

The Ugreen Revodok Professional 13-in-1 Triple Show Docking Station does have some caveats, in fact: the shortage of an influence provide, the brief twine, and the shortage of widespread availability. However I’ve been impressed with different Ugreen {hardware}, and the optimized construct and worth are actual pluses. I positively advocate it.

This evaluation initially appeared on PCWorld.