Latitude 5580 w/ USB Dock and Multi Monitors - What do you do with the laptop?

(EDIT: The WD15 definitely DOES have a Power button, which can be used to sleep and wake the system, though not boot it from a cold shutdown like the TB16, which I believe is possible because Thunderbolt allows some extra functionality over regular USB-C like the WD15 uses.)

In terms of physical placement, if you've got an E-Port Monitor Stand, Dell makes the DS1000 Business Dock Stand, which is essentially a WD15 dock built into a monitor stand, similar to what you have now.  Other than that, some people end up using the laptop with the lid open to use the built-in panel and possibly even the keyboard and mouse.  Otherwise, shoving the laptop behind the displays is certainly an option, I suppose.  You could also perhaps perch the laptop on top of the dock if the environment wasn't likely to cause laptops to be knocked over, or find some sort of stand that was tall enough to allow the WD15 to sit underneath it and wide enough to properly support the laptop that would be sitting above.

Thanks for the tips. I'm genuinely baffled at how to proceed based on what you're telling me.

My goal is to emulate the old e-port docking stations with the newer non-eport (and mostly USB-C) Dell business laptops. We'd like to upgrade to the newer laptops which don't have the e-ports on the bottom of them. Meaning:

Dock with keyboard, mouse, other items plugged into it permanently at a user's desk

2 external monitors

Closed laptop not being used as a 3rd screen

Ideally laptop is secured somewhere instead of being shoved behind the monitor or propped on it's side leaning against a wall (as users probably will end up doing as they value their desk space)

Some option to wake that closed laptop from sleep without physically opening the laptop and making Windows go bonkers swapping monitors around thinking the Laptop is a 3rd screen

From what you're saying, and from what I've been discovering on my own, is that it doesn't seem possible to replicate my existing e-port style 2 monitor + closed docked laptop.

Does the DS1000 have a power button to wake the laptop from sleep?

The TB16 looks closer to what I'm looking for, but the thing is $300 and it's getting generally *** reviews, with people complaining about ports and monitors not working after plugging in USB-C unless they futz with it, something I don't want to put my users through.

Any third party USB-C docks that you can think of?

In addition to the above, I forgot to address third-party docks.  Yes, there are a few, both USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, but they're fairly expensive too, and all of the ones I've seen have been limited to 60W of power delivery.  That may be enough depending on the systems you're using, but the Dell docks can push up to 130W, which is required by some XPS and Precision workstations, for example.  And on the Thunderbolt side, some of the display configurations are a bit more limited in terms of which connections can be used in which ways.  The TB16 is surprisingly flexible on that front, whereas the Lenovo Thunderbolt 3 Dock, for example, only allows 4K @ 60 Hz out of its Thunderbolt OUTPUT connector and one of its DisplayPort outputs.  Other brands that make docks you can look into are Plugable, Belkin, and I think OWC and StarTech.  However, none of those are likely to be any different from a Power button perspective since even on the TB16, that only works with Dell systems, which suggests it's some sort of proprietary implementation rather than a standardized part of the spec, and therefore non-Dell docks are very unlikely to support that feature on Dell systems.

Hang on a second, the WD15 absolutely DOES have a power button it, right in the lower-right corner of the top surface.  You can see it at this link: www.dell.com/.../pc-accessories

Reading the manual available on support.dell.com, the difference between that and the TB16 is that the WD15's power button is only a sleep/wake button, whereas the TB16 can power the system on from being fully shut down.  Are you looking at a completely different dock or did you just not notice that Power button? If you're looking at the D6000 rather than the WD15, that is a completely different animal, and the D6000's only advantage is that it works on both USB-C and USB-A systems. That's handy for companies that use "hotel desk" setups (rather than assigning specific desks for specific people) and that currently have a mix of E-Dock and USB-C systems.   But if that's not your case, the major DOWNSIDE of the D6000 is that its power delivery is limited to 60W rather than 130W AND it uses a DisplayLink chip for its display outputs, which offers a significantly worse experience under certain conditions compared to having displays natively driven by the GPU, as is the case with the TB16 and WD15, and E-Port docks for that matter.

In terms of locking the laptop, there isn't a great way to do that.  The E-Port docks allowed you to attach a lock to them, and the docks themselves had a locking mechanism that could hold the laptop captive.  That isn't an option here since the USB-C connector doesn't lock to the system, so you'd have to lock the laptop to the desk, although that of course is less convenient and doesn't protect the docks themselves from theft.

As far as I know, the DS1000 is functionally identical to a WD15 and is simply a repackaging to integrate it into the base of a display stand in order to reduce overall desktop footprint -- but from a space perspective that should leave you no worse off than the E-Port docks did, in fact you'd arguably be better off since the E-Port docks are physically larger and add several inches of depth to the rear of the laptop whether that's convenient or not, whereas the WD15 and TB16 docks can be placed more flexibly relative to the laptop itself.

(EDIT: The power button on the WD15 can be used for sleep and wake.)  And fyi, once the user wakes the system up and configures their display settings as desired, e.g. both external displays active and the built-in panel off, Windows will remember that configuration next time that system is connected to those displays.

As for the TB16, the bad reviews are mostly because it had a very rough beginning (in fact its predecessor the TB15 was even recalled) and it took a while for drivers, firmware, and BIOSes to stabilize -- but they did.  There was one recent stumble where Dell issued BIOS updates for a few systems that destabilized USB connections that were made through the dock, but the BIOS updates to fix that have since been released.  Yes, they're more expensive, but in exchange you get significantly expanded display capabilities because the TB16 offers quadruple the display bandwidth of the WD15.  Whereas the WD15 can only do dual 1080p @ 60 Hz, the TB16 can do dual 4K @ 60 Hz, and even triple displays at lower resolution.  If you're trying to determine a new standard for a larger deployment, you may want to consider ordering a TB16 to test with; you can always return it, but you may decide that the extra display capability and power button justify the added cost.  The only difference from a deployment perspective is that the TB16 requires the ASMedia USB Host Controller driver on top of the other drivers that it shares with the WD15, and the Thunderbolt software needs to be installed on the system -- and of course all systems need to have Thunderbolt ports rather than regular USB-C.

I really appreciate your answers to this question. You've been a huge help to a problem I've been dreading to solve for months now.

Those images were too small for me to tell if it's a power button or a Dell logo :)

Unfortunately I think there doesn't appear to be a best of both worlds type of solution here. The sleep/wake issues are going to be a major inconvenience for my users, and I'm personally not thrilled with what the users will physically do with their laptops when they have nothing to "click" into like with the e-port docks.

I know my users and how limited their desk space is, and I can absolutely see them cramming their laptops between the two monitors, stressing the connectors. I think I'll unfortunately have to just force them to use a 3 monitor setup (2 external + laptop display on a stand). They'll hopefully appreciate the "extra screen" at a cost of desk space, but so it goes.

That should solve the sleep/wake problem as they can always touch their laptop to wake things up, plus it'll solve my concern about the laptops getting crammed somewhere on the desk.

Excellent point about the Displaylink chip. We usually configure pretty beefy machines for our users to last them 3+ years, and it would be aggravating to know the GPU that is often "forced" into this higher end configs would go totally to waste with the D6000. Looks like I'm going with the TB16.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way to connect the TB16 to a Dell laptop is via USB-C?

Next question that I can answer on my own but you may know off hand: Which Dell 14" Ultraportable and which 15" with a 10-key will work with a TB16?

Given that the WD15 does in fact have a sleep/wake button, and your original concern about sleep/wake was because you believed that there was no such button on the dock, I'm unclear what sleep/wake problems you're concerned about at this point.  With that button you should in fact be able to connect a laptop that is asleep and wake it up -- although I will stress that I have not TESTED this.  I suppose it's POSSIBLE that the button only works if the system was put to sleep while it was already docked and only resumes if it remained docked during that time.  However, if you're counting on the TB16 to be the answer, be aware that the ONLY changes with the TB16 will be additional bandwidth for more and/or higher-resolution display configurations and the added ability to power the system on from being shut down.  Other than that, any issues you fear about the WD15 (rightly or wrongly) would also apply to the TB16.

I'm also still not clear what the concern is about the desk.  Even with the standalone WD15 placed behind the laptop rather than an integrated DS1000 unit, the total "depth" of that solution isn't much more than you'd get with the portion of an E-Dock that sticks out from the back of a laptop.  If you're just concerned that users will do dumb things because they will no longer be forced to lock their laptop into a specific location on their desk, I'm not sure what to tell you.  I think Dell and others would argue that extra placement flexibility is a feature, not a bug, and that any adverse issues that arise from that would be the result of a bug with your users. :)

I also would not necessarily recommend a forced 3-displaly setup when one is the built-in panel.  Even the latest version of Windows 10 hasn't completely solved the scaling quality issues that arise when simultaneously using displays of very different pixel densities, as would be the case here.  It's better than it used to be, but the reality is that Windows can still only truly optimize for a single display scale factor (whatever the primary display uses), and displays using other scale factors won't look their best when used at the same time compared to how they would look when Windows was optimizing only for their "native" scale factor.  Third-party applications are also still hit and miss, in fact so are certain components of Windows.  And if you're still on an older version of Windows, forget about it.  Windows 7 is particularly bad because you have to pick a single scale factor for the entire desktop, and no single scale factor will work well in that setup.  You'll either end up with the built-in panel or the external displays looking too large or small, or both sides running a compromise that's pretty subpar across the board.

DisplayLink can create issues even on beefy systems.  For example, when transferring data between the system and a USB hard drive or fast flash drive, a DisplayLink display can bog down due to bandwidth contention on the USB bus.  Same goes if something else has the CPU working pretty hard.  I've also found that full-screen video simply doesn't look right even on an otherwise idle, modern system, though that may not be much of a factor in an office setting.

As for Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C, note that Thunderbolt 3 uses the same physical connector as USB-C, and it is a superset of USB-C's functionality, i.e. any Thunderbolt 3 port can be used as a regular USB-C port, but a regular USB-C port will NOT necessarily support Thunderbolt 3.  But yes, with the WD15, the only connection mechanism to the system is USB-C, and with the TB16, the only connection mechanism is through a Thunderbolt 3 port.

The TB16 can be used with any Dell system that has a Thunderbolt 3 port (and should be usable with any other brand of PC), although note that on some systems, USB-C is standard while Thunderbolt 3 functionality is OPTIONAL.  The WD15 can be used on any system that has a USB-C port, but video output requires that the system's USB-C port support the optional DisplayPort Alternate Mode -- not all USB-C ports support video output (or charging the system, for the matter).  The only other factors to note are that both the WD15 and TB16 are available with two different AC adapter sizes, the former in 130W and 180W, and the latter in 180W and 240W.  In both cases, systems that require more than 60W of power delivered from the dock require the larger adapters -- but since the docks are usually the same price regardless of adapter and most adapters just end up on the floor, it often makes sense to get the larger adapter.  Some systems that only require the smaller adapter can still charge faster when a larger adapter is connected.  If you Google "Dell TB16 frequently asked questions" (or you can substitute WD15), you'll find a Dell page for each that will show which systems require which adapters.  Note that just because a specific system isn't listed there doesn't necessarily mean it isn't compatible with the docks; some newer systems aren't listed on those pages.

Good luck!

You mentioned DisplayLink problems with beefy computer - correct me if I'm wrong but that will only apply to the D6000?

The desk space issue is mostly because users have dual 24" monitors that take up quite a bit of space so it wasn't desirable to add yet another 16" worth of laptop to the right or left of those monitors. Your thoughts about display scaling on these laptops when attached to multiple monitors was also a concern. If that sleep/power button behaves the same way as the sleep/power button on the old e-port docks did, then I'm definitely in business.

That is an excellent piece of info that laptops may have USB-C, but not TB3. I wasn't aware of that and will check Dell's laptop line carefully.

I think the TB16 is the right route for me. I'm going to grab one of those and shop around for a new Dell laptop that supports TB3. I have several people queued up for laptop replacements and were just waiting on the results of this research, so after I put it through it's paces I'll be able to hand off that system to a waiting user.

As far as physical laptop placement, I will see how it works placing the laptops on the old spot where the e-port docking station was under the monitor.  Sadly I have long since tossed the old "legs" of my Dell monitors because most of them ended up attached to the old e-port monitor dock/stands.

Again I really appreciate your indepth answer to my question. You've saved me a lot of time and money ordering things that end up not working out for my needs and sending them back and ordering something else.

And finally, if you feel like even more reading, I wrote a post a while ago to "demystify" USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 that you might find helpful or at least interesting: en.community.dell.com/.../20017807

Excellent, glad I could help!

Yes, the DisplayLink notes would only apply to the D6000 and its predecessors the D3100 and D3000.  The TB16 and WD15 both use the native GPU output(s) wired to the USB-C/TB3 ports, so they would behave just like displays connected to an E-Port Dock.

If you want the TB16, unfortunately there's no version of that model that's integrated into a monitor stand like the WD15 and its DS1000 counterpart, so your desk placement may be complicated a bit.  With the TB16, just don't forget the ASMedia USB Host driver and Thunderbolt software if you need to bake them into system images, and I would also make sure that the systems have the latest Thunderbolt firmware installed, and of course the latest BIOS.

In terms of specific laptop recommendations, I personally use a Latitude 7480, which has USB-C with video output as standard and Thunderbolt 3 as an option.  I haven't looked into 15" Latitudes, but I'm sure you'll find Thunderbolt options there too.  The XPS laptops all have Thunderbolt 3 as standard, as do many or possibly all of the latest Precision models.  Good luck! :)

One final note: If you go with the TB16 and any of your users happen to use Citrix Receiver, make sure you're running version 4.9 or newer!  There's a KB article about this, but basically earlier versions hook the USB stack (in order to enable device redirection into streamed applications) in a way that prevents the USB ports on the TB16 from functioning at all, and sometimes even the system's own USB ports.  Worse, it becomes impossible to uninstall or even update the TB16's ASMedia USB host driver itself.  I lost a lot of time and some of my hair troubleshooting that one, because although understanding Citrix would allow one to understand why it might create this kind of problem AFTER someone told you it was the culprit, Citrix Receiver isn't one of those things that would naturally jump out at you while troubleshooting behavior like this.  Instead, you'd be more likely to try uninstalling and reinstalling drivers....only to find that this issue had made that impossible.

This is probably a question for my sales rep, but just wanted to verify that your 7480 does not have the e-port docking connector on the bottom of it? I'm looking at the 7480 and 7470 on the Dell laptop configuration page and neither say anything about the e-port docking connector, but I have several E7470's already in service here that definitely have it.

I think the Dell tech pages are not telling me the whole story.

www.dell.com/.../latitude-14-7480-laptop

Thanks again!

The giveaway is in the model names.  One is the E7470 and the other is the 7480 -- no "E".  The letter on Latitudes has traditionally noted the type of docking station they required -- so something like the C840 would require a C Series dock, then there was the D600 that switched to the D Series, then the E6400 for example.  Dropping the letter means there is no more proprietary docking connector.  The 7480 comes standard with a USB-C port that supports both charging and DisplayPort Alternate Mode, and is available with Thunderbolt 3 as an option.

That makes it MUCH easier to determine, thank you. I never noticed that!

That's odd about the E7470 and the 7470. The doesn't seem very Dell-like to remove the e-port without changing the model number (other than the "E"). As far as I can tell the E7470 and 7470 seem to be the same machine, except for the docking port. I think it's odd they would engineer an entirely new base plate and motherboard for the 7470 instead of just shipping E7470's and saying "if you don't need the port, don't use it".

On that same note it appears the 7470s are going away as they're all tagged with this 40% Instant Savings "Last Time Buy" promotion.

When replacing laptops for users, I offer them either the 15" with the 10 key (good for accounting), a 14" ultraportable, or if their job requires it, a 15" Precision heavy lifter.

If your opinion is that you're pretty happy with your 7480, that will probably be the go-to 14" ultraportable that I offer to my employees, with the D16 dock. I'm not quite sure how I'll handle desktop setup without these computers being able to be stable and click into a dock, but I'll cross that bridge once the hardware arrives.

The giveaway is in the model names.  One is the E7470 and the other is the 7480 -- notice that the latter does not have an "E".  The letter on Latitudes has historically indicated the type of docking station they use -- so something ancient like the C840 used a C Series dock, then there were the Dxx0 models (D600, D830, etc), and finally the Exxx0 models switched to E Docks.  A Latitude without a letter in its model name does not have a proprietary docking connector at all.  The 7480 comes standard with a USB-C port that supports both charging and DisplayPort Alternate Mode, and is available with Thunderbolt 3 as an option.

Yes, my apologies, I meant that I was going to grab the TB16 w/240w charger. That should fit the requirements for the 7480's (with TB3) and the 5580's (with 10 key and TB3 option) that I was looking to purchase for my staff.

Most of my monitors are the older Dell P2412H's that have display port and DVI-D (but no HDMI).

I would hope the TB16 dock will still function properly with 2 of these monitors (one via DP and one via DVI-D and a HDMI or miniDP adapter)?

I know it's overkill to run the 4k-capable dock with only 2x 1080p monitors, but I'd rather not upgrade perfectly functioning monitors at this time.