NEW Microsoft Surface Dock 2, Ethernet For Notebook

I have a Surface Laptop 4 that I wanted to dock into a more desktop PC like setup with a mouse, keyboard, and external monitor, but I didn't want a bunch of cables hanging out of the laptop and that I would have to yank when I wanted to take the laptop on the go. I initially thought of getting a USB C hub with charging support and lots of USBs and HDMI etc, because the Surface does support charging and display over USB C, but I decided to splurge and get the official Microsoft Surface Dock 2 instead, as I love the magnetic Surface connector. Now I can plug everything and the kitchen sink into my laptop with just one cable.So far the only things I have plugged into the dock are the receiver for my mouse, the 3.5mm audio cable going to a Bluetooth speaker that doubles as my PC speaker, and a cable in one of the front USB C ports to charge my phone and other devices at my desk. I do not yet have my external monitor (letting my bank account recover from buying this dock haha). I plan on getting a ~24" 1440p display, I may just go with one that has native USB C display support, or HDMI with an adapter cable, however some people have reported having touble doing this unless they purchased an expensive Microsoft HDMI to USB C adapter, so I will research a bit more. I will also update this review if I have trouble connecting an external display. The quality as with most official Microsoft products is really good. The dock is a hefty black box, and it feels really solid. The entire bottom is covered in a grippy rubber, so it will definitely stay put on your desk and won't flop around or get pulled off the desk top by a ton of cables being plugged in or anything. All the ports feel high quality too, the USB C ports all have a good firm click when plugging in accessories. The AC adapter brick is amusingly a bit larger than the dock itself, but the max power output of this thing is almost 200w so that's understandable. All the cables used to connect the dock are really sturdy feeling and chunky, but they are not stiff. They are still flexible enough to route them however you need for your setup. Overall, if you can drop the cash for the convenience and you have a compatible Surface PC I would highly recommend this dock! I mostly just use mine for home use, and hobby content creation like digital drawing and dabbling with music production software etc, but this would also be a great office or work-from-home companion as well.

Works great with the surface studio laptop. I have a 5120x1440 monitor that I have a single USB-C to DisplayPort cable connected to the dock. It is able to drive that monitor in HDR without any issues. Charging is at full speed as well. It also has a gigabit Ethernet connectionThey provide enough usb ports for a non insane person. My desktop on the other hand uses about 15 usb ports and has a hub. I haven’t required a use case with this dock to add much and don’t really fill them all. If your laptop is your primary computer then I could see the need to buy a hub in addition to this dock Works great with the surface studio laptop. I have a 5120x1440 monitor that I have a single USB-C to DisplayPort cable connected to the dock. It is able to drive that monitor in HDR without any issues. Charging is at full speed as well. It also has a gigabit Ethernet connection or at least what my router is reporting.They provide enough usb ports for a non insane person. My desktop on the other hand uses about 15 usb ports and has a hub. I haven’t required a use case with this dock to add much and don’t really fill them all. If your laptop is your primary computer then I could see the need to buy a hub in addition to this dock.I don’t know if anything gets bottlenecked. But it seems to handle a lot of data transfer over this thin cable. Very satisfied about how slick and robust this dock is.

I've been using a Surface Dock 2 (purchased from another retailer) with a Surface Pro X. I connected the Dock to the monitor using a VGA adapter I'd been using with an older computer. At first the new setup worked fine but after a few months the monitor began to flicker. Sometimes the monitor wouldn't display anything at all. Each time I turned the computer on I had to fiddle with the connection but eventually, fiddling no longer worked. Eventually I stopped trying and made due with just the Pro X monitor. Needless to say, I was quite frustrated. As time when y I continued to search for a solution directly with Microsoft, on the web and here on Amazon's pages. I noted that many other Dock 2 users were having similar frustrations. The monitor I was using was an older model so I bought a one. The problems continued with the new monitor. Thinking the VGA cable I was using might have been the source of the trouble, I tried a new one of those, another VGA. That didn't fix the issues either. Well, the other day I decided to take last shot with an HDMI cable, purchased here on Amazon (USB C - HDMI 6 ft Benfei) for about $10. Today I plugged it in. Immediately, the monitor worked flawlessly! I don't know if all VGA connectors fail with the Dock 2 but clearly, mine did. So my recommendation is to go the HDMI route from the start and save yourself a lot of potential grief. By the way, I've loved the Pro X itself from the beginning.