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Got one of the many computers with just USB-C connections but want to be able to use other peripherals with USB-3.0 connections? Or maybe you want to plug in an HDMI cable to watch streaming content on a proper TV or second monitor? Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ tests out the OWC USB-C Travel Dock (2nd Gen) with built-in USB-C wire and finds it's a solid option. Though there are some oddities around power delivery you'll want to know about...
Check it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3jGKTco
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This travel dock will let you connect everything to your USB-C computer
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Let's check it out. Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at another USB-C dock
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This is the OWC USB-C travel dock and it's actually a pretty slick little device
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It has USB-C on the side, an SD card reader, a USB-C pass-through power port on the front
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and then on the other side it has HDMI and again USB-C
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So let me give you some actual specs. So the USB-C is, ready for this, USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C
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The pass-through supposedly handles up to 100 watts but we're going to test it and you'll
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see it steps it down and it actually needs some power out of that so it can function
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So it goes, the USB 3, what I call USB 3, they call USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type A, so you know
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that as the classic rectangular connection. And then let's see, the SD card reader is UHS-II compatible, which is to say you put
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in an SD card from anything but the most fancy super expensive 4K RED camera and it'll
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work fine. And then the HDMI on this side is an HDMI 2.0 which supports 4K at 30 hertz
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Now let's real quick step through some close-ups of each of the sides
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This is the first side, USB 3 and HDMI. Second side is just USB-C, this is the power pass-through which is what that cryptic symbol means
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The third side is SD card and USB 3. And there's nothing on the fourth side but there is something on the bottom
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This is really cool, this is the second generation of their travel dock because this one includes
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a built-in USB-C cable. And this is super helpful, so you just pop this out and now you're ready to go
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So I am going to plug it into my MacBook Pro and then we're going to just start plugging
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things in, right? So let's see, I'm going to start with power because you always need power, right
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So I have this hooked up to my 87 watt Apple charger
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Now the way to tell how your charger is working is you go into About My Mac and then you say
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System Report, there's other ways to get there, that's the easy one, go to Power
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And this is really interesting, you can see that it's identified as an 87 watt charger
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but the computer is telling me it's only using 60 watts. So then the question is, well how many watts is it using when it's actually going through
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the dock? And as you can see, that steps down just a couple of watts
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So I'm not sure why the 87 watt is only used at 60 watts but running it through this dock
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subtracts a couple of watts, that probably just means a couple more minutes for a full
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charge but everything's powered. Now let's see what else I can plug in
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So HDMI, you'll notice there's a screen behind me, if this works, that screen should hopefully
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come on. Let's see what happens. I can see in my playback monitor and there it is
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So that monitor is on and working off of this. Then I have a Western Digital My Passport Air with a USB 3 connection
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I will plug that in and that'll show up on my desktop
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We're gonna show and do a little speed test too in a second
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Then I have a SanDisk SD card, I'll plug that in. My goal is to use every port simultaneously because why not, right
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That's what we have it for. And then finally I'm gonna tap that other USB port so I can just charge my iPhone while
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we're doing this and let's see, it is charging so at least we know that's a hot port, that
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is pretty important. So now we got everything hooked up, it looks a little bit like an octopus but it's so neat
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and so convenient. So now let me go and I'm gonna switch to showing you what's on my Mac and then we're gonna
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run some speed tests and then I'll come back. Okay, the Passport Air has shown up and I'm gonna just go ahead and drag an 800 megabyte
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file off of it onto my desktop and we'll see how fast that is
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And this is usually really fast. Writing is typically faster than writing
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That was nice and speedy. Now let's copy an 820 megabyte file back onto the drive
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So we're doing those bi-directional writes and that's pretty zippy too. Now let's close this, we have these handy files and now this is the SD card
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Oops, let me get that in the right place. And it is in fact from a camera which is what the DCIM is
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Now we're gonna just take this larger file, the 820 meg and copy it onto the SD card and
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let's see how long that takes. So that's definitely slower than the hard drive is which is probably not super surprising
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because SD cards, depending on their speed, it's super complicated to figure out speed
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but depending on their speed, they're gonna work at different rates. So this one takes about a minute to copy
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Meanwhile, let's see what else is going on. So can I access the other drive
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Yep, that all looks good. Can I jump around? That sure looks like it's a nice responsive speed on the other drive while this one's
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still copying. And let's see, I'm gonna just get this one out entirely
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And we probably don't need to finish the copy, but actually let me show you real quick how
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to get to that power info. So go about this Mac and then from there, system report
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And then in the system report, go down to, oops, let's make sure we can see the copy
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Let's see, here's that copy status window. So now go down to where it says power and then you scroll down just a little bit and
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there's AC charger. So you can see that I'm getting 52 of my 60 watts of power by using the travel dock
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So let's just wait. It's just about done with the copy. I'm not sure why we need to wait, but hey, it's a couple more seconds, right
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So just about done with that. And by the way, in this hardware report, there's a ton of other interesting information
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It's definitely worth poking around and looking at what's there. Lots of interesting stuff
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Okay, we're going to close this. We're going to close the about and then the copy is done too
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So that's great. Let's switch back to me being on camera. So interesting results
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I mean, it's decent, it's fast. Everything does seem to be working
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Little curious why it's dropping eight watts out of my power. I'm curious why my Mac isn't using 87 watts anyway when it's plugged in directly
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Be that as it may, this is definitely working and I'm feeling just the tiniest bit of warmth
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There's obviously some circuitry in here and the power that eight watts is going somewhere
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It's probably doing something and powering the circuit board. Meanwhile, my HDMI has been working just fine
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So everything's working. My phone is still charging. It's almost charged. That's good
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So now, turns out there's one more fun little thing is that as it says on the front of the
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box, OWC has heard from customers that it's a pain to eject everything
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So they have this new dock ejector. So now let's switch back to my computer long enough to eject everything
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Well, my desktop's a little sloppy, but notice there's this icon in the menu bar
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I'm going to click on it and eject volumes. And now let's see what happens on the left side with those two volumes
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Ejecting all volumes. Done. Boom. Well, that's super easy, actually. That's totally worth downloading even if you're not going to get an OWC
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But you should because this is actually a pretty nice travel dock. So now that everything's unconnected, I can unplug things, right
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Without any issues. So I'm going to unplug everything. And I'm even going to unplug the power
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You ready for this? Ooh, unplugged the power. So now let's get this maximally neat by putting this in the bottom
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In fact, I can just close my computer. And what I've found is if you put it in nose first and then just sort of push everything
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down after that, it's a little easier. And so there's my USB-C connector cord on the back
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And then this is the OWC USB-C travel dock. All in all, a pretty solid piece of hardware
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You know, as with all of these, it takes a little bit of juice to be able to actually
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run the thing. So when I plug in that power, it definitely leeches off a little bit
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But I'm not hugely worried about that. Generally speaking, I think these are just for convenience
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Now, would it be nice if I had, for example, an HDMI port on my computer
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Well, yeah, that'd be nice, but I don't. So having to use something like this with HDMI on it is not the end of the world
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It's small, it's convenient, it has a built-in cable. Super helpful. Pay attention
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When you go on to something like Amazon, they still have first gen OWC travel docks and
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those don't have the cable. And the way you can tell is they don't have the little black base plate on them
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So that's where it stores the cable and it's totally worth a few extra bucks to get that
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So speaking of which, what we have left to talk about is the price
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But before we get to the price, if I can ask for you to tap or click on that little red
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subscribe button in the lower right corner and subscribe to my channel, I sure appreciate that
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And give me some feedback. Leave me a comment. Tell me what you think I should have tested or whether you appreciate the tests that I
10:01
did so that I know how to continue to refine and improve my videos
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Make sense? Right? Cool. Now, kind of wish there was a logo on the front, but there isn't
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So I guess this is the orientation we'll use. So this is the OWC USB-C travel dock and it is $54.99 at Amazon.com
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But shop around a little bit. I found it for a couple of bucks cheaper in various other venues
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Worth looking at. But either way, if you're looking for a USB-C dock and you want something that can travel
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with you with that handy built-in cable, this is definitely an option to explore
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And with that, I'm going to plug everything back in, which means I'll hope to see you
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in my next video
#Laptops & Notebooks
#Consumer Electronics
#Media Streaming Devices