APPLE MAC PRO DOCK HOW TO
This guide to the top MacBook docking stations for your Apple laptop will help you find the desktop peripheral setup that's right for you. (For a higher-level overview of docking-station options, check out our guide to how to pick a laptop docking station. If you don't want to rely on a whole host of USB-C adapters or dongles back at your desk, a docking station can be your best solution short of buying a desktop Mac. Designed and optimized specifically for the MacBook Pro, the Thunderbolt 3 Express Dock HD not only charges and powers your MacBook Pro up to 85W with a single Thunderbolt 3 cable, it also gives you the ability to connect and power 8 separate devices and peripherals through the dock to your MacBook Pro, including hard drives, monitors, speakers, headphones, internet and more.
At certain times, you want to work on a single laptop screen in the living room, and at others, you buckle down at a desk with a more elaborate multi-screen setup and desktop peripherals. And in these fraught days, with most business travel reduced to wearing a path in the carpet between your home office and the kitchen, flexibility matters. But many offices around the globe still rely on legacy ports such as HDMI and USB 3.0, not to mention SD card readers and Ethernet for wired connections. Thunderbolt and wireless connectivity are perfectly serviceable for most mobile professionals while they're out and about. Check out our primers on Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 to learn what makes Thunderbolt different from USB-C. Like Henry Ford's Model T, which gave you a choice of colors (so long as you chose black), modern MacBooks give you your choice of ports, so long as they are Thunderbolt ports.Īpple uses Thunderbolt 3 on laptops with Intel processors, and Thunderbolt 4 on laptops with Apple's own M1 processor. Apple's MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and discontinued MacBook are remarkable laptops, but they don't make for the best desktop alternatives right out of the box.