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September 2nd, 2020 19:00
Best docking station solution for 4 different laptops - D6000 or W19TB
I sent this email to Dell Sales but I thought I would also post it here to get actual user feedback and experience.
I need some help in picking a docking station. Between my wife and I, we have four Dell laptops and want to get the most appropriate docking station for our needs. The laptops are:
- XPS 15 9500 - this is my wife's brand new personal laptop and has 3 USB-C ports (2 are Thunderbolt) (Jul 2020)
- XPS 15 9570 - this is my personal laptop and has a USB-C Thunderbolt port, 2 USB-A 3.1 ports, and an HDMI port (Nov 2018)
- Inspiron 5570 - this is my wife's work laptop and has 2 USB-A ports (1 3.1 and 1 2.0), and an HDMI port. It does not have the optional USB-C port. (Oct 2018)
- XPS 15 9530 - this is my older laptop and has 3 USB-A ports (2 3.0 and 1 2.0), an HDMI port, and a mini DisplayPort. (May 2015)
We want to connect to both of these monitors and have a dual display:
- HP Z27 27" 4K monitor which has 1 DisplayPort 1.2, 1 mini Displayport, 1 HDMI 2.0, 1 USB-C (with DisplayPort 1.2), and 3 USB-A 3.0 ports. Max resolution is 3840x2160 at 60Hz. (Nov 2018)
- Dell SE2417HG 24" monitor which has 2 HDMI ports and 1 VGA port. Max resolution is 1920x1080 @at 60Hz. (67VQM82, Nov 2016)
The two docking stations we are considering are the Dell D6000 and the Dell WD19TB.
Questions:
- Will the D6000 work with all four laptops? Will the WD19TB work with all four laptops, including the ones that don't have Thunderbolt?
- What would be the best docking station for this situation?
I know that the WD19TB would probably be the best solution for the two newest laptops with Thunderbolt ports, but not sure if it will work with the older laptops without Thunderbolt ports.
I think that the D6000 would be an adequate solution for all four laptops, but not the optimal solution for the two newer laptops. I know that it won't have adequate power for the Thunderbolt laptops, but that's not a deal breaker. I believe that both of these docking stations should be able to run both of these monitors as dual displays.
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jphughan
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14K Posts
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September 2nd, 2020 21:00
@SpinCon The WD19TB isn't an option for systems that don't even have a USB-C port. You can't use a USB-C to USB-A adapter to plug it into those older laptops, or if you do, you won't get any video output. The WD19 dock family relies on receiving video through DisplayPort Alt Mode, which involves having a native GPU output wired to the USB-C/TB3 port of the attached system, and you can't have native GPU outputs wired to USB-A "regular USB" ports.
The D6000 is able to connect over USB-A because it uses "indirect display" technology called DisplayLink -- not to be confused with DisplayPort. But while DisplayLink offers some advantages in terms of universality, in that it will indeed work with all of the systems you listed so long as you install the DisplayLink software on them, the way DisplayLink works comes with some drawbacks that can be significant in many use cases. I wrote about those in detail in the post marked as the answer in this thread. However, as you may have surmised by now, that type of option is that only docking station that will work across all of the systems you listed. Your two older systems don't have any sort of traditional docking connector (USB-C/TB3 or an older style underside docking connector), so docks like the D6000 are the only way to go with them. And with respect to power, even if you connect the D6000 to a system via USB-C, it only supplies 60W of power. The XPS 15 9570 and 9530 are designed for a 130W power source, and the XPS 15 9500 is as well unless you have a configuration that does NOT include an NVIDIA GPU, in which case it's designed for a 90W power source. But either way, if you want those systems to perform optimally while connected to that dock, you'll need to keep their power adapters connected as well, otherwise you'll experience slower battery charging and/or performance throttling -- on top of the drawbacks of DisplayLink itself. And when the D6000 is connected via USB-A, it doesn't provide any power at all because USB-A doesn't support sending power in that direction or carrying anywhere near enough power to run a laptop.
I would also discourage you from running a 27" 4K display and a 24" 1080p display at the same time. You'll have to use very different display scaling settings on those displays to allow content to appear a reasonable size on each of them, and while Windows supports running multiple scale factors simultaneously, it can only RENDER for one at a time. The scale factor that Windows uses for rendering is the scale factor of whatever display was primary at the time you logged into your user account. For any other scale factor in use, Window continues to render at that scale factor and then uses post-render GPU scaling to enlarge or shrink the rendered content to size it appropriately for other displays. As you might imagine, that does not look as good as rendering for the actual scale factor in use on those other displays -- but Windows doesn't do that. So the result of mixing scale factors is that any displays using a scale factor other than the one Windows is rendering for will not look as good as they would otherwise. This comes up a lot with people who for example have a laptop with a 15" 4K display, where they're probably running 200% scaling, and a 24" 1080p display where they're running 100% scaling. If they try to use those simultaneously, they'll find that one display or the other will look blurrier than it does when used on its own. What I've just described is the reason why. And it's why I recommend that people ensure whenever possible that all displays they're using at any given time can use the same scale factor, or at least very close scale factors, because the wider the gap between the "render" scale factor and the display's scale factor, the more noticeable the inferior result will be.
jphughan
9 Legend
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September 2nd, 2020 21:00
@SpinCon P.S. I'm curious what you hear back from Dell Sales. I'm guessing they'll tell you that neither dock is officially listed as compatible with all of those systems (which is true, but it doesn't mean that the D6000 wouldn't actually work), but they'll fail to mention anything at all about the difference between the WD19TB using native GPU outputs and the D6000 using DisplayLink, and the ramifications of said difference.
SpinCon
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September 12th, 2020 15:00
Thank you for your detailed, in-depth answer, with more information than I thought possible! I appreciate the deeper explanation about the underlying display technology behind the two docking stations.
It appears that using these two monitors in a dual monitor setup is not feasible and that a docking station with the current hardware probably isn't needed at all. For my wife to duplicate her work setup we would need another 1080p monitor and the D6000 would be more than adequate (she's using a D3100 at work). If we want a dual monitor setup for our personal XPS 15 laptops, we would need another 4K monitor and the WD19TB would be best choice although the D6000 would be adequate, just not able to supply the power needed for the laptops.
Incidentally, the only reply I received from Dell sales is that the laptops I was inquiring about were out of warranty, even though it applied to only 2 out of the 4 and had absolutely nothing to do with the question I asked about the docking stations, so they were absolutely no help at all.
Apologies for not replying as promptly as you replied to my original question, but I was actually in the hospital for three days with Deep Vein Thrombosis and a Pulmonary Embolism. I didn't want you to think that I'm not grateful for the time and effort that you put into your reply.
jphughan
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September 12th, 2020 18:00
@SpinCon Happy to help out, and glad you're ok! Sorry I didn't have a better answer in the form of an ideal solution that covered all systems, and also that Dell Sales didn't help out much, but hopefully this helps you at least make the best choice for your purposes out of the feasible options. Stay safe!