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A good (read expensive) dongle will work fine. I have one that reliably powers 2 monitors (a 5k and a 4k), 1gb network and powers my macbook.

I think the real problem is we get a lot of cheap products coming from China with very little quality control. QC is poor because they have no incentive to build in quality. E.g. you likely don't realize how flaky the dongle is until after the 30 day return policy, the branding on many of these plugs is minimal so you don't even know which company to avoid for your next purchase.

+1 to this.

I had bought a "top reviewed" HDMI / USBC cable on Amazon. It seemed to have issues overheating and dying. Bought the Insignia version of the same from BestBuy and it works like a champ (even when it's 100f outside and my house has no AC).

It's not about where you buy it, but the quality matters.

It was an eye opening experience when I left the 1 star review, the vendor keeps pinging me with bribe offers to take it down. So when you see even a little bump of 1 star reviews, you have to know that those are the people who have some integrity and there likely is a proportion missing.

This is exactly it. If you want anything that actually works and is reliable, you pretty much cannot buy it on Amazon, you need to buy it directly from the company that makes it. I have a Henge Dock for my older 13" MBP and it's worked perfectly for years over USB-C, and on my newer Touchbar 13" I havea a 2-port USB-C microdock from HyperDrive. I use Anker PD/IQ3 chargers and cables, and I have no issues whatsoever.

There are companies making good products, but you have to be willing to pay for them and you have to buy them directly from that company usually. Even if you find that product on Amazon, due to SKU commingling you can assume most of the inventory is counterfeit.

Too many people go to Amazon, type some generic keywords in, and pick "Amazon's Choice", which is some "brand" off AliExpress with no QC. It's not just electronics, this is true for things like car parts and tools as well. It's somewhat shocking how much Chinesium-grade products have infected every aspect of American life due to the ubiquity of people buying through Amazon and Amazon's complete lack of inventory QC.

Friends are amazed that so much of my stuff works, and it seems the only way people find out about good stuff now is via word of mouth because you can't trust online review sites which are mostly just reformatting Amazon star rankings with affiliate links. The state of ecommerce in 2020 is appalling.

> If you want anything that actually works and is reliable, you pretty much cannot buy it on Amazon, you need to buy it directly from the company that makes it.

I remember several years ago purchasing the $70 digital adapter from Apple. It's the one with 3 ports and merges into one. I forget which version it was.

It was horrible. The HDMI port wouldn't work.

I had purchased two. They were absolute trash. That's $140.

I replaced them with two Amazon versions for half the cost. They worked.

It was only after I purchased that I noticed that the reviews on Apple's own website showed it rated under 2-stars, with lots of angry reviews from people having the same exact problem.

I will say Belkin's USB-C dock works amazingly well. I love it.

> I replaced them with two Amazon versions for half the cost. They worked.

The point is that you don't know what you get on Amazon these days. It could be that you get a working version and I get a counterfeit version even though we both buy the same article on Amazon as they are just all in the same storage box.

Anker generally keeps their old products around, but they don’t sell their gen 1 thunderbolt 3 dongle anymore. Too many problems.

I had two of them (they sent me a second because I was having problems). If you plugged the dongle into the wall but not a laptop, it would send the wrong voltage to the USB ports. I mostly keep it around to flash SD cards.

GP: "Buying stuff from Amazon is like rolling dice. If you get a 1, you lose."

P: "I rolled a 6, and it worked fine for me. I don't know why everyone else is having problems."

Except the part about how buying the dongle from Apple was anything other than a 6, and you lose.

I own a 4k @ 60Hz monitor. If I were to buy a laptop, I'd like to connect it and a bunch of USB devices via a single USB C cable. Easy, right?

Except that the monitor only supports DisplayPort 1.2. 4k60 requires a bandwidth of 12.54 Gbit/s. DP 1.2 consists of four data lanes, each providing 4.32 GBit/s, so my monitor requires four full lanes. DP 1.3 and up provide at least 7.48 Gbit/s, so 4k60 would only require two lanes for that.

USB C consists of 4 data lanes. When using the DisplayPort alternate mode, it can assign either 1, 2, or 4 data lanes to DP. The other lanes can be used for USB. In addition to that, it also offers a single USB 2.0 lane.

If a dock - even an expensive one - supports a resolution of 4k60 via DP and provides USB 3 ports, will it actually work for me? It could use DP 1.2 by assigning four data links to DP , but that means USB gets downgraded to 2.0 and I don't think any hub actually supports this. It could use DP 1.3+ and assign two data links to DP and two to USB, but if it outputs that same DP signal, it won't provide the bandwidth my monitor needs so it must actively convert two-link DP 1.3 to four-link DP 1.2. Again, I don't think any hub actually supports this.

The hardware I need can definitely exist. It's a pretty normal thing to ask for. A lot of docks, even the expensive ones, will claim to support what I need, but as far as I can tell not a single dock actually can. Because USB C has so many protocol options, figuring out what is supported has become nearly impossible.

Yep, docks are known not to request 4 lanes for DP even when there's only a display plugged in. In fact even dongles that don't have anything other than a display output on them sometimes only ever request 2 lanes, sadly.

You can't really blame them, though. The vast, vast majority of users will be absolutely fine with 2 lanes, especially with DP 1.3+. USB C is mainly used on laptops, and your office projector just isn't going to support 8K120 with HDR. Why spent the extra money if virtually nobody needs it?

4K60 without 1.3+ seems like a quite common situation..

An external GPU box would work for you, since the offboard GPU would have a full-bandwidth link to the monitor. Depending on which GPU you put in it, though, it would probably be cheaper to buy a new monitor.

That would absolutely be a (albeit very expensive) solution, I didn't even think of that! But that would require Thunderbolt support, which is still a bit rare. And I don't think that would support USB at the same time, right?

Looks like I was misremembering the details of this LTT video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2VxwFEA8xM

They use a Thunderbolt hub (CalDigit TS3 Plus) to a Thunderbolt GPU box. (Razer core X) A single cable goes to the hub, GPU box and all your USB peripherals plug into the hub. The hub itself claims it can run a DP 1.2 monitor, so you could skip the GPU box, if you don't need graphics performance.

Or spring for a monitor with thunderbolt on it, and ditch the dongle or move it to a permanent location behind the monitor.

I am currently waiting for thunderbolt 4 support to upgrade my other monitor, so can have a hub in there somewhere instead of some devices plugged into each monitor.

> Or spring for a monitor with thunderbolt on it

I mean if you can suggest one that actually does that I’ll get right on pestering my work for one. But considering the fact they bought the basically useless base model MacBook “pro” I don’t fancy my chances.

It appears that in the last 6 months the average price of TB3 displays has gone up (I'm seeing a lot of 5k models on offer).

My selection is the same price, and instead of being near the top of the pack, it's near the bottom. Might have something to do with Apple's re-entry into the market at such a high price point.

But oh god why do we even need the dongle! What backwards world is 2020 where you can't plug a monitor into your computer?! At least, not any actual real monitor I have at home or have seen in the office.

Which dongle is this that works and can it keep a drive mounted while video editing?

As I said don’t you think it’s strange that if this product supposedly works perfectly then why isn’t Apple shipping one with a premium price tag.

Are you using drives that have their own power source? I found that (a) using the “right” cable (determined through experimentation), and (b) only using mains-powered external hard drives made a big difference.

Don't cheap out on a USB-C hub: get a Thunderbolt 3 hub.

I have a few CalDigit Thunderbolt 3 hubs. They're great. 4k monitor, gigabit ethernet, a number of USB-3 devices, and power-delivery for my Macbook. They are decidedly not cheap, but I wasted a lot of money on plain USB-C hubs (not Thuderbolt 3 which uses the same port but is not the same) that are now effectively trash.

I've got one at all of the "workstations" in the house. Tired of working in the bedroom? Unplug one cable and move to the office that has an identical setup and everything works and is easy.

Yeah I have one but thinking of getting an AMD Desktop and that won't have thunderbolt, although maybe I can buy a PCI card?

>and we're still in a world where this single cable for power, screen and ports just doesn't seem to really exist.

I have a Dell XPS with a dock. There's only one USB-C connection between my laptop and the dock which provides power, screen and usb ports. It's pretty nice to come into the office and plug only one cable in (back in the pre-pandemic days)

From my experience, Dell and HP docks have worked for me and a few different windows laptops, so they seem the best choice if you use windows.

Not sure about whats best for Mac though, and Linux... I love linux systems but my experience with linux laptops has not been the best.

> we're still in a world where this single cable for power, screen and ports just doesn't seem to really exist

It does. I have a Macbook Pro that connects to two screens, a keyboard, mouse and ethernet via a single USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 cable. The fact that not all USB-C cables are Thunderbolt 3 cables is annoying, but at least they label them pretty clearly.

I bought a Dell UltraSharp U2719D explicitly for use with my work-issued 2019 MBP and it’s worked a treat. Plug one cable in, the display lights up, laptop starts charging, USB devices attached to the monitor connect, just like that.

Since the only place I “dock up” is at home it’s been a perfect solution. This right here is where USB-C should be heading, not annoying docks you need to lug around.

My wife and I have both been using the "CalDigit TS3 Plus" nearly every single day since December 2018. 3-4 different laptops, 2-3 monitors each, endless accessories and drives, etc. Zero issues.

I keep this hub[0] in my laptop bag for traveling and I haven't had any issues with it in over two years, either. I've plug in monitors, daisy chained USB-C, plugged in my iPad as a second monitor, and projected over HDMI numerous times.

And I have this[1] monitor for traveling.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074DRW84M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b... [1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y8SSQG5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

I tried some cheaper, smaller hubs for my ~2018 macbook pro 13", and nothing worked well. They either didn't work with an external monitor, or they did but they interfered with wifi.

I finally bought a CalDigit TS3 Plus. It was way more than I had hoped to have to spend on a hub, but it has worked without issue for over a year now.

https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/

+1 for the TS3 Plus. I spent A LOT of time looking around at the dock/hub state of affairs when I got my 2018 MBP 15" because I wanted to drive 3-4 external monitors and wanted as few cables as possible. The CalDigit drives my 2 2K monitors (but can drive higher, at least 4K IIRC) via DisplayPort and then I plug in 1-2 other Thunderbolt 3 -> DisplayPort (or HDMI for my older monitor).

From the hub (read: 1 TB3 cable plugged into my MBP) I get:

* Gigabit ethernet * PD to my laptop * 1 DisplayPort (which I use to drive 1 monitor) * Digital Optical (I don't use it) * 1 TB3 port (which I use to drive the other monitor with a TB3->DP cable) * 1 USB-C 10Gbps port * 1 USB-C 5Gbps port * 5 USB3 5Gbps ports (old square style) * SD card reader * Headphones/Mic output/input

It is wonderful to plug in 1 cable and get my power for my laptop, internet, monitors, webcam, wired mouse/keyboard, Lightning cable for iOS development, Micro-usb for Android development, external SSD for CCC backups, and label printer (and probably something else I'm forgetting). I just want to reiterate, all of that from ONE cable. It's pretty amazing.

This is, by far, the best setup I've ever had and I have never had a problem with it in the 2+ years that I've been using it. I picked mine up for $299.99 and it's worth every penny. I see it's $250 on Amazon right now and if this thing died today I would (after a tiny bit of research) re-buy it immediately.

Here is the product page: https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/

I have used three USB-C displays extensively: a Dell U3219Q, an LG 27ud88 and an LG 32ud89. The 32" Dell and 27" LG work flawlessly: usb ethernet dongle, usb ssd drives, USB audio interface, mouse and keyboard work great. They don't even crap out on sleep/suspend. My LG 32UD89 has been rubbish though, it needs to be powered on before the macbook wakes up or it needs a hard power cycle to detect USB-C input.

They are all very pricey though.

Its not USB-C so much as those MBP ports are a bit buggy. Depending on the model, you might have better success if you try the port that's on the other side of the laptop.

I agree, I have an Apple dongle and it glitches too, albeit less often than the non Apple dongles.

Sometimes even my Apple keyboard won't work connected to the dongle, I have to put in and out a few times for it to work.

Things that never happened with old USB cables.

Have you tried powered adapters? That's what I'm using and I've had zero problems. This includes adding things that wouldn't work with a passive adapter.