@jg91 The WD19DC is designed for systems that require more than the 130W of power, which is the max that the WD19 180W and WD19TB (always comes with 180W adapter) are able to provide to attached systems. The WD19DC can supply up to 210W of power because it attaches to the system using two USB-C connections (the "DC" stands for "dual connector"), but that's only useful if you have a system that has high power requirements and supports that "dual USB-C" type of dock connection -- such as the Precision 7000 Series systems that the WD19DC is specifically designed for. Otherwise, it is possible to use the WD19DC in single connector mode for compatibility with other systems, but in that mode it behaves just like a regular WD19 (NOT the Thunderbolt version). But the regular WD19 is much less expensive, so if you'll be using it ONLY with such systems, then it's a complete waste of money. The XPS 13 only requires 45W for optimum performance, so the DC would be pointless for you. And again, since the DC behaves like a regular WD19 in single connector mode, it's actually LESS functional than the WD19TB that uses Thunderbolt over a single connector. The DC is NOT a Thunderbolt dock. It's a "dual USB-C" dock, and as such when it's actually using dual connectors it can achieve essentially the same display setups as a Thunderbolt dock, but not when it's using a single connector.
In terms of whether you need a dock at all, you do have the option of skipping the dock, with a couple of caveats. First, at least one of your displays would need to be a U2719DC, not the regular D model. The "C" version signifies that the display has a USB-C input. The second display can be a regular U2719D if you want. The second caveat is that with an XPS 13 9380, the only way to get enough video bandwidth over USB-C to run dual QHD would be to limit USB data speeds to USB 2.0. Because of the way USB-C works at the moment, setting up the USB-C link to carry USB 3.x requires cutting maximum video bandwidth in half, which on an XPS 13 9380 doesn't leave enough bandwidth for dual QHD. The U2719DC offers a "USB-C Prioritization" option that allows you to choose how the display configures the USB-C link, either to maximize video bandwidth or USB data speeds. You'd need to set it to the former. So as long as you'd be ok with having only USB 2.0 speeds available for whatever devices you plug into the display's USB ports, then you can skip the dock, set up a daisy chain, and call it a day. But if you want dual QHD and USB 3.x, then you'd need a Thunderbolt dock, such as the WD19TB.
@jg91 What resolution would these displays be using? 27” displays are available as FHD/1080p, QHD/1440p. UHD/4K, and even 5K. The way you can connect them will depend on what you want to run. If you’d be running dual FHD or QHD, you can set up a daisy chain. Although if you go QHD and want the first display to be USB-C, there are some additional considerations.
If you’ll be running dual 4K, you’ll need a Thunderbolt dock. And your system won’t run 5K displays.
Leaving your laptop connected to a dock (or USB-C display) that provides power is no different from leaving the regular power adapter connected all the time. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than draining and recharging your battery unnecessarily. The best option is to configure your BIOS to limit the maximum charge level to 80% and set the minimum charge to 50% so that the battery will be idle most of the time (not being charged or kept topped up or discharged), but that setup has you sacrificing everyday convenience for long-term life. Not everyone is willing to make that trade-off.
If you provide more detail about exactly what you’re planning in terms of resolution and whether you’d want a USB-C display to have essentially a docking station built into the display, I can give you more precise recommendations.
I'm planning to use the dual display mainly for work and web development, including programming, video editing and some basic graphic design. I'm not planning to use it for gaming or for watching films etc, so I guess that FHD works just fine for my daily tasks. Where can I find the dual display maximum resolution for my specific model (XPS 13-9380)? I've checked the user manual but I didn't find any useful information. It would be useless to invest in new monitors without being able to reach their full potential due to a resolution limitation.
Thanks for your charging configuration advice, I didn't even know that it's possible! I'll check it out right away.
@jg91 Happy to help. Your system can run up to 3 simultaneous independent displays, including the built-in display if it's active (it's always active in Linux, fyi, even if you're not using it), and each display can be up to 4K resolution. That said, I don't think there's a way to connect triple 4K external displays even if you're on Windows and running with the built-in display disabled. The GPU would allow it, but I don't think you'd have the bandwidth to run it. You can absolutely run dual 4K external displays though.
That said, if you've got your heart set on 27" displays, I would strongly recommend QHD rather than FHD or 4K. To understand why, first it's important to understand that Windows is designed around a "reference" pixel density of 96 ppi, which means that on a display with that pixel density, something that was meant to be an inch wide (such as an inch-wide gap in the MS Word ruler) would actually be an inch wide on the display. FHD resolution is more commonly found on 24" displays, because that setup results in a pixel density of 94 ppi, very close to reference. But taking FHD resolution and stretching it out across a 27" display drops pixel density down to 81 ppi. That will make text look noticeably grainy. 27" FHD displays really only makes sense in my view for people who either have poor eyesight and therefore want the extra display size to make things larger rather than gain more workspace, or for kiosk displays where size for viewing at a distance matters more than sharpness, or for budget gamers who want a larger display with a relatively low resolution in order to keep their GPU load down.
By comparison, a 27" QHD display results in a pixel density of 108 ppi, which is slightly SHARPER than reference. But a 27" 4K display doesn't make sense to me at all from a practical standpoint except for video editors who specifically need 4K resolution. Other than that, its pixel density is high enough that you'll have to enable display scaling, which some Windows applications still don't handle well, but NOT high enough to give you that "Retina display" experience of razor sharp text -- you need 5K resolution on a 27" display for that. So 27" 4K in my view is pretty much the worst of both worlds. But it's catching on because 4K is the "in" thing these days, I guess.
So I would say that you should consider how much workspace you want for your purposes. If you'd be happy with an FHD/1080p workspace, then just get 24" displays and save yourself some desk space. There's no point stretching that out to 27" so that it's larger and grainier. If on the other hand you want more workspace, then get 27" QHD displays. I just got a pair of them myself after using dual 24" WUXGA (1920x1200). I've found that the size and resolution combination of 27" QHD means that in Word or Acrobat, I can put up two 8.5x11 pages side-by-side, in their entirety (including all margin area), in either portrait or landscape (the pages, not the displays), at full print size (meaning the on-screen representation is the same size as a physical sheet of paper) and still have enough room for the Word/Acrobat application interface above and below. That has turned out to be a major productivity bonus.
It seems that a dual QHD display is the right solution for me, so I'm thinking about buying two Dell UltraSharp 27" monitors (U2719D) and a Dell Docking Station WD19 Thunderbolt. Does it sound like a reasonable combination? TBH I find it hard to understand the differences between WD19 (power adapter 180 Watt) and WD19DC (power adapter 240 Watt) - does the power difference has any effect on the graphic performance?
And by the way, is it possible to use a daisy chain configuration with the U2719D monitors and skip the whole docking thing?
jphughan
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August 23rd, 2020 19:00
@jg91 The WD19DC is designed for systems that require more than the 130W of power, which is the max that the WD19 180W and WD19TB (always comes with 180W adapter) are able to provide to attached systems. The WD19DC can supply up to 210W of power because it attaches to the system using two USB-C connections (the "DC" stands for "dual connector"), but that's only useful if you have a system that has high power requirements and supports that "dual USB-C" type of dock connection -- such as the Precision 7000 Series systems that the WD19DC is specifically designed for. Otherwise, it is possible to use the WD19DC in single connector mode for compatibility with other systems, but in that mode it behaves just like a regular WD19 (NOT the Thunderbolt version). But the regular WD19 is much less expensive, so if you'll be using it ONLY with such systems, then it's a complete waste of money. The XPS 13 only requires 45W for optimum performance, so the DC would be pointless for you. And again, since the DC behaves like a regular WD19 in single connector mode, it's actually LESS functional than the WD19TB that uses Thunderbolt over a single connector. The DC is NOT a Thunderbolt dock. It's a "dual USB-C" dock, and as such when it's actually using dual connectors it can achieve essentially the same display setups as a Thunderbolt dock, but not when it's using a single connector.
In terms of whether you need a dock at all, you do have the option of skipping the dock, with a couple of caveats. First, at least one of your displays would need to be a U2719DC, not the regular D model. The "C" version signifies that the display has a USB-C input. The second display can be a regular U2719D if you want. The second caveat is that with an XPS 13 9380, the only way to get enough video bandwidth over USB-C to run dual QHD would be to limit USB data speeds to USB 2.0. Because of the way USB-C works at the moment, setting up the USB-C link to carry USB 3.x requires cutting maximum video bandwidth in half, which on an XPS 13 9380 doesn't leave enough bandwidth for dual QHD. The U2719DC offers a "USB-C Prioritization" option that allows you to choose how the display configures the USB-C link, either to maximize video bandwidth or USB data speeds. You'd need to set it to the former. So as long as you'd be ok with having only USB 2.0 speeds available for whatever devices you plug into the display's USB ports, then you can skip the dock, set up a daisy chain, and call it a day. But if you want dual QHD and USB 3.x, then you'd need a Thunderbolt dock, such as the WD19TB.
jphughan
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August 23rd, 2020 16:00
@jg91 What resolution would these displays be using? 27” displays are available as FHD/1080p, QHD/1440p. UHD/4K, and even 5K. The way you can connect them will depend on what you want to run. If you’d be running dual FHD or QHD, you can set up a daisy chain. Although if you go QHD and want the first display to be USB-C, there are some additional considerations.
If you’ll be running dual 4K, you’ll need a Thunderbolt dock. And your system won’t run 5K displays.
Leaving your laptop connected to a dock (or USB-C display) that provides power is no different from leaving the regular power adapter connected all the time. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than draining and recharging your battery unnecessarily. The best option is to configure your BIOS to limit the maximum charge level to 80% and set the minimum charge to 50% so that the battery will be idle most of the time (not being charged or kept topped up or discharged), but that setup has you sacrificing everyday convenience for long-term life. Not everyone is willing to make that trade-off.
If you provide more detail about exactly what you’re planning in terms of resolution and whether you’d want a USB-C display to have essentially a docking station built into the display, I can give you more precise recommendations.
jg91
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August 23rd, 2020 17:00
Hi @jphughan, thanks for the prompt reply!
I'm planning to use the dual display mainly for work and web development, including programming, video editing and some basic graphic design. I'm not planning to use it for gaming or for watching films etc, so I guess that FHD works just fine for my daily tasks. Where can I find the dual display maximum resolution for my specific model (XPS 13-9380)? I've checked the user manual but I didn't find any useful information. It would be useless to invest in new monitors without being able to reach their full potential due to a resolution limitation.
Thanks for your charging configuration advice, I didn't even know that it's possible! I'll check it out right away.
Many thanks again, your help is much appreciated!
jphughan
9 Legend
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14K Posts
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August 23rd, 2020 17:00
@jg91 Happy to help. Your system can run up to 3 simultaneous independent displays, including the built-in display if it's active (it's always active in Linux, fyi, even if you're not using it), and each display can be up to 4K resolution. That said, I don't think there's a way to connect triple 4K external displays even if you're on Windows and running with the built-in display disabled. The GPU would allow it, but I don't think you'd have the bandwidth to run it. You can absolutely run dual 4K external displays though.
That said, if you've got your heart set on 27" displays, I would strongly recommend QHD rather than FHD or 4K. To understand why, first it's important to understand that Windows is designed around a "reference" pixel density of 96 ppi, which means that on a display with that pixel density, something that was meant to be an inch wide (such as an inch-wide gap in the MS Word ruler) would actually be an inch wide on the display. FHD resolution is more commonly found on 24" displays, because that setup results in a pixel density of 94 ppi, very close to reference. But taking FHD resolution and stretching it out across a 27" display drops pixel density down to 81 ppi. That will make text look noticeably grainy. 27" FHD displays really only makes sense in my view for people who either have poor eyesight and therefore want the extra display size to make things larger rather than gain more workspace, or for kiosk displays where size for viewing at a distance matters more than sharpness, or for budget gamers who want a larger display with a relatively low resolution in order to keep their GPU load down.
By comparison, a 27" QHD display results in a pixel density of 108 ppi, which is slightly SHARPER than reference. But a 27" 4K display doesn't make sense to me at all from a practical standpoint except for video editors who specifically need 4K resolution. Other than that, its pixel density is high enough that you'll have to enable display scaling, which some Windows applications still don't handle well, but NOT high enough to give you that "Retina display" experience of razor sharp text -- you need 5K resolution on a 27" display for that. So 27" 4K in my view is pretty much the worst of both worlds. But it's catching on because 4K is the "in" thing these days, I guess.
So I would say that you should consider how much workspace you want for your purposes. If you'd be happy with an FHD/1080p workspace, then just get 24" displays and save yourself some desk space. There's no point stretching that out to 27" so that it's larger and grainier. If on the other hand you want more workspace, then get 27" QHD displays. I just got a pair of them myself after using dual 24" WUXGA (1920x1200). I've found that the size and resolution combination of 27" QHD means that in Word or Acrobat, I can put up two 8.5x11 pages side-by-side, in their entirety (including all margin area), in either portrait or landscape (the pages, not the displays), at full print size (meaning the on-screen representation is the same size as a physical sheet of paper) and still have enough room for the Word/Acrobat application interface above and below. That has turned out to be a major productivity bonus.
jg91
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August 23rd, 2020 18:00
@jphughanthank you for your insightful comment!
It seems that a dual QHD display is the right solution for me, so I'm thinking about buying two Dell UltraSharp 27" monitors (U2719D) and a Dell Docking Station WD19 Thunderbolt. Does it sound like a reasonable combination? TBH I find it hard to understand the differences between WD19 (power adapter 180 Watt) and WD19DC (power adapter 240 Watt) - does the power difference has any effect on the graphic performance?
And by the way, is it possible to use a daisy chain configuration with the U2719D monitors and skip the whole docking thing?
jg91
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August 24th, 2020 17:00
Brilliant, thank you so much @jphughan!
I'll stick with two 27" U2719D displays and a WD19TB docking station, I guess that this is the best solution for me.
I'm so grateful for all of your help and support, you're the best!
jphughan
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14K Posts
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August 24th, 2020 18:00
@jg91 Happy to help, and thanks for the kind words! Enjoy your setup!