Hmm, good question. Right now I’m just using 3 USB A? ports, one for my mouse, one for my keyboard, and 1 that’s just passthrough charging for my wireless headset, and then I have one HDMI cable for my monitor. I would like a second HDMI for a potential second monitor down the road, but don’t think I’ll need much more than that.
That sounds like it could be handled by a USB-C hub just fine. That’s good, because a sub $50 TB3 dock doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon. No ethernet or audio needed?
Edit: something like this is close for $34, if the second HDMI is not a hard requirement, and if one of your USB-A devices can be made to work with a cheap USB-C to USB-A adapter. Or maybe your monitor has a few USB-A ports.
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You’re not going to find anything with Thunderbolt at that price range at all.
It doesn’t sound like you need Thunderbolt though, so there are quite a few USB-C docks that could do what you want. Anker, Plugable, Cable Matters. Though a decent one is going to be around $100 - $150.
I had a Cable Matters one before which was nicely built but had terrible coil whine. I currently use an Anker one and have had no problems with it.
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For thunderbolt specifically, lower cost equals at a minimum lower performance and likely lower reliability.
If you can restrict yourself purely to USB, then sticking to a major brand such as Anker or Belkin will get you a reliable device generally, though our experience is again you get what you pay for as lower price models may have significantly lower throughput or not be able to supply sufficient bus power especially “fully loaded”.
Honestly, at the $30 price I wouldn’t even bother unless it is strictly a convenience, or very occasional use. If you can splurge to the ~$60-70 level, you will get a much better device generally.
My two cents
PS: we’ve seen some low price TB docks come and go on Amazon including a couple of instances being branded as part of their own “basics” line and in all cases we’ve seen have been far more trouble than they are worth. USB only is a bit better, but is still a gamble IMHO because Amazon multisource most of them and the primary driving factor is lower cost, and they do minimal if any QC
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Thanks everyone for the replies. I’ve been a bit out of the hardware side of things for the past 5 years or so. I need to catch up.
So the full situation is, because my dock and possibly mouse are being finicky lately, I’m thinking of taking the opportunity to upgrade the dock to support dual monitors, pick up a second monitor, new mouse, and maybe even some sort of monitor stand for my desk, which, while nice, is quite crowded with my large split keyboard, 27" monitor, and 13" MBP on it. So I was trying to cut corners to justify buying all the things by not spending too much on any one thing. Sitting at this computer most of the day is my job though, maybe I shouldn’t worry about it as much as I am.
I only have 2 USB A devices. My headphones are USB C, I’ve just been charging them with an A to C cable. This would definitely work if I decide not to get a second monitor. I’m trying to put together a total budget of how much I want to spend on all of this and go from there. Also looking at maybe getting an office chair and a rocking/anti-fatigue standing mat since my desk is sit/stand, so all the things add up pretty quickly.
Yeah, lots of things to consider and lots of things that aren’t going to be good if you cheap out.
I wouldn’t cheap out on a dock though, as it’s likely to just end up being a headache and a frustration. A decent USB-C dock is a little expensive, but I don’t see any reason one shouldn’t last a good decade or more for most people.
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In your testing, how often do TB3/4 cables pass your tests, especially for longer 2-3 meter runs?
Are there any cables you’d recommend for reliability? I’m looking specifically at Apple’s 3M cable, which from ChargerLab’s teardown of the 1.8m version, seems adequately built.
However, nothing strikes me as particularly outstanding in material quality or design. I’m hoping the $160 cost means that you are paying for absolute rigorous testing.
Apple’s cables are over priced, but OTOH we’ve never had even a regularly used one fail certification.
The other one we’ve had very good results with are C2G. They are a bit cheaper than Apple and visually look to be made by the same OEM manufacturer.
C2G 6ft Thunderbolt 4 Cable - USB C - 40Gbps - M/M - C2G28887 - - (cdw.com)
EDIT: missed your other question on first read. Sadly less than 35% of the TB cables we’ve tested actually fully pass (inadequate shielding is the most common fail)
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Is there any source for 10ft/3m version, or is Apple the only game in town?
This reminds me a lot of when HDMI 2.1 cables first hit the market. Some ‘certified’ cables would still intermittently drop 48Gbps signals at 10ft+. But it eventually got better, to the point you can find reasonably priced long cables that work (mostly :P).
So if a 48Gbps HDMI cable can be made cost-effectively, then most of the cost of a 40Gbps Thunderbolt cable should come down to the difficulty in sourcing the low-volume Intel controller chips?
We generally don’t use the longer cables though we did test and pass the Apple one as well as the C2G which is slightly cheaper.
It’s also true that the only cables that have passed have been ones with the Intel chip, though there are other makers “compatible” chips such as Broadcom
And your assumption about HDMI being comparable is mostly right, but HDMI hsa a much higher allowable error rate than TB at any given speed
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FWIW I have that Anker USB-C hub and I have had no problems with HDMI and USB connections. The only ding is that for some reason on my machine (SLS) the hub’s card readers produce lots of errors in the event viewer. Solution 1: don’t look in the event viewer. Solution 2: disable the card readers in Device Manager when not needed. Otherwise a good deal, good build quality, good performance.
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I will probably go with it, but now I’m also waffling on getting a webcam with ringlight, that will take another port. Might bump up to the higher one I saw. I think it was around $50.
I’ve pretty much ruled out the second monitor at this point though after researching that, unlike Windows, you can’t just have 2 HDMI ports on your dock for Mac to work as separate screens. You need a more expensive dock to handle it. I’d rather get a better office chair. The extra monitor isn’t that needed for my workflow.
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I like Cable Matter’s cables. Solidly built, but I don’t know how well they deliver on the specs.
The longest Thunderbolt 4 one they have is 2m (although they do have a very expensive fibre optic 10m one - data only).
They also have 3m and 5m USB 4 cables if that’s okay.
I hope the Apple cables are better than their cables in general have been. It’s pretty disgraceful how quickly they’ve fallen apart in the past.
I’ve heard good things about Cable Matters form a couple of our customers, though we have yet to actually test them.
Purely anecdotal but the one I actually saw seemed to be well built. perhaps a bit more durable feeling than Apples.
BTW: I agree that Apple’s USB and lightning cables tend not to be the most durable, but their genuine TB cables appear be sourced from another OEM and are quite durable, at least in our experince.
Glad to hear they aren’t cheaping out on Thunderbolt cables. The others really are a joke.
I’ve had good experiences with almost all the Cable Matters products I’ve used. They have a bit of a rugged, utilitarian aesthetic. The only one that I had to return was a USB-C dock. It had terrible coil whine (just bad luck probably), though the corners were a bit sharp and in the vertical stand it took up a bit too much room.
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Forgot to swing back by and say thanks for this. I picked up the Anker hub a few weeks ago and have had no problems with my mouse lagging or monitor flickering since. I don’t think I’ll be adding a second monitor anytime soon anyway, so it’s working perfectly for what I need it for.
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Nice, thanks for the update! 
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So since this has become our de-facto dock thread, I recently swapped my Anker USB-C hub for an old Lenovo TB3 dock, and lo-and-behold, it does actually make a difference in something.
I initially had my SLS hooked up to a single 35" 3440x1440 monitor via the Anker USB-C dock, and the Win11 transparency effects produced some artifacts (blocky shapes) in regions with dim subtle color gradients. Turns out all of that goes away when using the TB3 dock, so I’m thinking the bandwidth of the USB-C dock wasn’t enough to support sufficient color bit depth at that “5 megapixel” resolution even when using just one monitor. The more you know.
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Yes you are likely hitting some throughput/bandwidth limitations of the Anker whereas the genuine TB3 dock has “additional channels” to prioritize video for instance.
It’s something we repeatedly tell customers, but they don’t usually believe it until they experience it, but with docks especially, you get what you pay for.
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