MagBac USB C Docking Station Dual Monitor, 15 in 1 Laptop Dock 3 Display 4K 60Hz, 65W Power Supply, Thunderbolt 3/4, 8 USB Port,2 HDMI+DP,1Gbps Ethernet Port, SD/TF for Mac and Windows Dell/Hp/Lenovo

One of the more attractive docking stations, but has limitations on display
Like most docking stations this will only work if your laptop supports display port over USB C or thunderbolt 4. If you don’t have that capability then the display side of it won’t function. That also presents a limitation over display capability, be very careful if you’re expecting it to support 3 monitors because your screen resolution and refresh rate suffer. For the price point I’d have hoped for more display capability, but I don’t know if this is a limitation of this device or of display port over USB C. I know my HP laptop with HP dock can happily drive two 4k screens at a decent refresh.The unit itself looks lovely. No more boring black boxes, this looks good and fits in well on a desk. The metal case is a good heat sink avoiding any need for fans. The support for USB 3.2 is great, giving a couple of easy to access ports when needed. The power delivery supply-side is pretty limited, so you’ll probably still need to use your laptop’s standard power supply.As a smart way to dock your laptop this ticks most of the boxes. But it has a few limitations.

Some good claimed connectivity, odd and great design, power supply or value vs many other Stations
Ordered via vine.i-MagBac is not a brand I had heard before, unusual for Docking stations of this size so I have checked their webstore, and they seem like a new brand that does indeed specialise in these devices but with obvious signs all over this is not a long established one. Still it at least has some brandingI owned have tested and reviewed several USB-C Docking stations within the £100 to £250 price bracket, my first impressions are the shape and design is not similar to anything I’ve seen before, what honestly looks a bit odd and unappealing. But I assumed there must be a design element or some unique features that would explain what quite honestly looks not very good and different from more typical design.It’s still exceptionally small and compact – but it’s not something I feel would compliment my desk if on show.And at £150 or even lower prices, to be honest it looks very atypical and entirely different to it’s many rivals, which is unique yet not in a good or functional way.I can see this has been designed to be used either vertically or horizontally, with rubber strips to protect the surfaces. But I have seen and owned several Docking stations in this price range, and the styling is unusual and dissimilar to all it’s competitors, where they have used what appears like handles for the support, which if you choose to not use this vertically they become completely pointless and make the dimensions unnecessarily longer as a result, even though it remains compact.It provides more than enough stability and if you were carrying this, then it has 4 handles for you to choose from. But i’m quite sure this was not the intended purpose. If this were £100 then it wouldn’t change much but it would be somewhat forgivable.Even as i’m writing this review in the “Buy it again” section I see one of my previous WAVLINK docking stations, currently £159 depending on the option you choose. And from a style. visual and design perspective alone, which is a significant factor, that is the very best Docking station of this kind at least that I have reviewed, looking like a modern console, with a floating/hidden base and really nice styling elements. And I’ve owned another that was similar in it’s vertical design but cheaper than this.So the more popular choice is certainly vertical design as it takes less desk space and my first impressions are that the R&D team here have not done a good job, this just does not look good before we begin with anything else – When you would expect a newish brand to logically replicate what are already the popular are best selling design and style category.So even if the rest of the docking station was flawless, the first thing any buyer considers is “Do I like the appearance” and “Will this look good on my desk” or their personal setup.It doesn’t look awful, it’s very small and compact and I could overlook it if it were really good value for money or was otherwise superior, but it’s not really.Although I can say its certainly solidly constructed and well built and lightweight, whilst looking like a tank being made of aluminium alloy. There are also some visible screws which do not bother me too much but it would be better if they were on the corners and subtle. But those screws are noticeable as the are directly underneath and conflict with the printed port labelling on the device, and I mean they look awkward being just 1mm or so from the Black printed labelling underneath many on the ports, which looks even worse vertically each port and the corresponding labelling is then sideways so if you have it in the vertical position which I think looks better and takes less desk space, then you have to almost turn your head sideways to read it. And this can be seen easily in the marketing photos, nearly all of which have the device in vertical orientation, which is logically going to be the most popular choice I’m quite sure.Yet all ports on both sides and their labelling have been implemented in a horizontal position, which makes sense and is easily readable when the device is horizontal. Which some may be fine with, but I think judging by the listing images the retailer seems to understand that this looks better and will be more popular in vertical orientation. Because even the largest printed magBac Logo is also printed horizontally. In which case, it’s not unreadable but surely it would have made sense to design this with both matching and corresponding vertically oriented black printed labelling also printed with the same vertical orientation, since they seem to understand this device is almost certainly going to be preferred vertically – It would have also looked tidier and saved space if the ports were in parallel rows, here it seems they have some logical positioning, and again the unit is really small. But it seems they’ve just decided to put the ports with horizontal orientation, wherever they fit and without much though of how good it will look, especially when vertical where it all becomes sideways, including the port laser printed labels.Even though its rubber pads allow the consumer to choose either one – If you have this horizontally matching the Logo on the top facing up to the sky and labelling and ports are then parallel with the device itself – Not only do you have 2 sets and a total of now 4 redundant frames just pointlessly in the way and making the device wider that service no purpose. Not to mention that only the bottom pair of frames which are like hooks actually have a rubber strip designed to protection your surface, and it just looks unusual.So whether you have this sideways or vertical, the top matching frames serve no purpose whatsoever, other than to make the device look symmetrical and I haven’t seen any other docking station that has adopted a similar design. So unless the top/vertical symmetrical base/frame design are supposed to be literally hooks for lifting the device, they service no purpose whatsoever, add some additional weight, and in horizontal orientation you have these on either side providing no function whatsoever.This is why the design of this confused me so much when I saw it, as I could not figure out why this atypical and unique design has been chosen, dissimilar to any others I’ve seen on the market. I don’t know what this was based on, and if it looks stylish it wouldn’t matter but being both visually unappealing, unusual and serving no purpose at all (for the top section) since it has been designed to be positioned upside down, you could do so but the rubber pads are missing so this was not by design.I don’t know how much empty space is on the inside, but judging by the empty surface area are port arrangement, they could have probably made it even smaller, than its already small size.Where MagBac got this prototype design from I have no idea but whilst they have offered the user either vertical or horizontal orientation, which can be versatile when done properly, or a risk of complications and conflicting design. And the latter Horizontal orientation on this device is especially going to be a challenge to achieve tidiness with the chassis itself being larger than necessary and poorly designed. And although I can allow for some unknown internal design limitations, the fact is there are dozens or similarly priced £100-£250 units that have managed to offer to same or greater connectivity, yet in a more familiar, compact and popular design which looks expertly and optimally designed. And they lack any entirely redundant features and excess dimensions or essentially unnecessary, unused empty space.It’s not impossible to implement both Horizontal and the more popular desk-space saving Vertical orientation, but they have created problems by doing so here. And the top redundant double frame “hooks”, whilst adding symmetry it does not add styling, if anything it’s confusing and there is no point in these existing. Though I will add, that on both the bottom base and the top section they have added subtle fins on each end, which is either for some limited functional heatsink like heat dissipation possibly, or if nothing else it’s a styling element.Now onto the connectivity offered, as for the 15 in 1 ports and connectivity it is quite good that’s if all the ports are exactly as they state, as it seems confusing how they can provide so many USB 3,2 gen 2 with the total power supply.First we have to start with the power brick, which ideally wants to be hidden if at all possible because it’s not small, and I’d say it’s larger than most considering it supplies only 65W of PD power. And although the Power indicator is appropriately on the front at the top with a small LED indicator. It’s DC 20V plug port is located at the back as you’d expect, but in vertical orientation they’ve positioned this at the very top of the unit.This means you’ll have a rather thick cable bending down until it reaches the surface. If you have this horizontally it hardly matters, but it would have been a good idea to position this port at the bottom for obvious reasons. Potentially there’s space for it if the ports had been more logically arranged, because although the HDMI and display ports are potentially thick cables themselves, they are not necessarily going to be plugged in and the DC port is the only cable thats absolutely necessary to turn the device on.And as for total power output, 65W is most definitely on the low end, in fact with this unit they could have instead used a much smaller 65W USB plug, also allowing the user to simply use any 65W PD type C source they might already have, which would have been a narrower cable.When the other 15 in 1 Docking station I have reviewed thats currently almost equal in price has a similarly sized block but supplies double the power at 130W PD, this already demonstrates that this is going to be far more limited with half the power, and enables 100W passthrough charging.Without comparing every single port which would take too long, this can potentially provide:1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps + Power2x USB-A- 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps + Power2x USB-A 3.0 5Gbps (One Data only)2x USB-A 2.0 480Mbps1X SD Card1X MicroSD/TF card2x UHD 4K @ 60Hz HDMI1X Display Port UHD 4K @ 60hzGigabit LAN 10/100/1000GbpsLooking at these specs and concavity alone, looks really very good, with USB 3.2 Gen 2 being almost the fast port and protocol, with only USB-A being faster that you will only find on the newest and more expensive docks as they provide so much power and bandwidth.The range and versatility of the connectivity is pretty standard, and it can power triple monitors at 4K/60hz being a primary feature, with one of those being display port. I will assume these are HDMI 1.4 ports. I think maybe a couple more USB 2.0s might have been good, as these are best for any 2.4Ghz receivers, I have 4 of them on the back of my Mini PC, and 2.4Ghz USB receivers can actually interfere with USB 3.0/3.1 etc, and no more than USB 2.0 is needed. On a modern desktop, it’s not unusual to have 4x 2.4Ghz devices, so you might have to use some of the USB 3.0s for this, and this is why the most modern NUCs and Mini-PCs opften have 4x USB 2.0s despite being old protocols, they are for 2.4Ghz and basic peripherals.But with 65W Power brick, and even with a Thunderbolt 3/4, when I do the maths I’m not sure if its possible to have 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, as when you add the theoretical power supply each of these ports, and the others can supply simultaneously, it doesn’t seem to me that there is enough power to fully utilise these ports, 3 of which are of the very latest USB 2.3 Gen 2, which is very modern, fast and powerful, the fastest you can get besides USB 4.0.Without being able to test the power supply of these ports, I do wonder if this brand actually meant USB 3.1 Gen 2, because even if they were USB 3.2 Gen 1 and not gen 2, the bandwidth and power combined really seems like it might be more than this docking station with the 65W power brick can supply.So I can do some data transfer testing, but I cannot verify if this truly has 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2, because that would be rather impressive when this only has a 65W block, I wonder if you’d really be able to fully utilise these ports maxed out and simultaneously.Even so, and at this price point the 65W power brick is very low, with many at this price having 100W or even double at 130W, allowing for greater power/bandwidth and passthrough charging.So I don’t feel the power brick is enough at this price point, nor can I verify whether all the ports and power/data claims are accurate. It just seems like more than should be possible, simultaneously that is unless they have throttled some of them somewhere.So I can only go by the claims made.Overall, in terms of size and weight, its compact. It’s also well constructed with aluminium alloy plus it has used some special laser printed labelling that isn’t going to fade, although this isn’t generally a concern as you don’t make contact, but its good nonetheless.But, the ports are side ways unless you have it in horizontal orientation, and if you do then I don’t think the cables coming from both sides looks very good or tidy not to mention the redundant hooks, there isnt much consideration as to port spacing and optimum positioning.If you use it vertically, which looks better and takes up less desk space, and would be tidier. Then all of the ports and their laser printed labelling are sideways. And although you don’t necessarily need to read what each port is once you’ve owned it for a long time, it just doesn’t look good they are the wrong way round. Needless to say, they could have arranged at least many or even all of the USB ports in double rows/columns up and down the unit, which would have looked really tidy simply by rotating the USB ports themselves vertically, whilst keeping the labelling underneath with vertical orientation and easily readable, since there is so much spare/unused space on this Docking station. Similarly this could have been done with the HDMI and Display Ports, with the Gigabit port also. As these ports are not really impacted, less accessible or harder to connect, whether they are vertical or horizontal. And these ports are typically rotated on all ranges of different devices, not just Docking stations so it remains intuitive.Even the largest SD card really, could have been rotated and carefully arranged in a vertical column, perhaps with the MicroSD underneath. And the same could be said for the DC power input port, which ideally would be at the very bottom and the ports with the largest cables could have been more logically positioned based on the size and thickness of the cables that go into each port, and which are going to be used more often, the the DC power plug being permanently connected, like the USB-C Host.This is exactly how the majority of similar 15 in 1 etc etc docking stations have implemented their ports, that are cheaper or in a similar price range to this, more thought and logic has been put into their positioning as well as what looks visually appealing.I could say more on this unit, but with the low power supply/brick, unusual design and irregular orientation, positioning and spacing of ports/labelling. I can’t say this is the best 15 in 1 docking station that money can buy, or even that it’s great value for money. I’m somewhat sceptical as to whether the 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports are legit, with only a 65W power brick, and when you combine the power/bandwidth of all ports.The product does say that the Triple monitors are dependent on the power of the USB-C or Thunderbolt host also, so this really could have used a much more powerful brick that would have also increased compatibility.If this were maybe around £100, i’d be giving this a higher rating, and it I assume the ports and protocol claims are all accurate, if you can overlook the appearance and design, then the claimed connectivity is actually quite strong and worth the money. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually meant 3x USB 3.1 Gen 1 or 2 ports.Still, overall this isn’t the Docking station I’d buy for £140. It’s certainly a different a unique design, but there are better alternatives around £120-£150, with virtually the same/similar connectivity that loo much, much nicer, among many other factors.If this were really good value for money I could overlook some of the design “flaws” or imperfections, but they are asking for quite a competitive price I think. Although all the docking stations vary somewhat in their design choices, there are quite a few very similar to this. I have owned, tested and reviewed better than this one,It’s not unusable by any means, and is functional, buy given the choice it would not be a showcase feature on my desk, I’d try my best to hide it and keep things as tidy as possible, whereas some others I would proudly display, and are much nicer to look at, with better port and cable positioning and management.I’ll give this 3/5 stars

MagBac USB C Docking Station
This is one of those items that just does exactly what it is made to do, does it well, is well made and is great value for money.If you have lots of USB devices to connect and/or charge then this is the unit for you.There is also an HDMI port and a display port which is great for adding an extra monitor or 2 if neededSpeeds are really good across the ports and can achieve up to 10gbpsA great device giving many connection and charging options along with the extra monitor connections.Top notch, highly recommended