THUNDERBOLT 3 DOCK - CORSAIR TBT100 THUNDERBOLT 3 DOCK: TURNS A THUNDERBOLT 3 MAC INTO A PORT-FESTOONED POWERHOUSE

The sleek Corsair TBT100 Thunderbolt 3 Dock (fave. co/332D0r8) ups the game for a Mac laptop, Mac mini, or iMac by providing a full complement of ports for those that lack them and offering additional—and more easily accessible— ports for those that already possess many.

- GLENN FLEISHMAN

The compact dock, which weighs in at a pound (0.5 kg), provides ready access to useful jacks while offering a solid design contrast that doesn’t imitate Apple’s aesthetic. The $259.99 price is right in line with the array of options.

The TBT100 has five high-speed data ports: two USB Type-A SuperSpeed (3.2 Gen 1 or 5Gbps), two USB Type-C SuperSpeed+ (3.2 Gen 2 or 10Gbps), and one Thunderbolt 3. That Thunderbolt 3 port, however, is reserved to connect to a Mac, as the 40Gbps throughput is necessary to power all the peripherals. It also provides up to 85 watts to power an attached laptop, removing the need for the laptop to have a separate connection to power. (The dock also supports Windows systems with Thunderbolt 3.)

It’s become almost standard for Thunderbolt 3 to sport two HDMI jacks that allow one or two 4K displays at 60Hz, as the TBT100 does. Even if you have an iMac, Mac mini, or MacBook Air—or even a MacBook Pro—you would likely prefer not to have monitor adapters occupying your Thunderbolt 3 ports. This dock takes care of that problem. While that’s most useful for a laptop, it’s also handy to have more ports free when adding two 4K monitors to a Mac mini or iMac.

The dock also includes gigabit ethernet and a standard SD card slot on the front. The only thing it’s lacking is a MicroSD card slot, common on docks, though easily remedied with a simple SD card adapter. A front-side 3.5mm stereo jack supports audio input and output.