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Short version: Bought 2 of these along with a new Dell XPS 15 in lieu of the Dell docking stations after reading numerous reviews on many similar products. The Dell gives better resolution possibilities, but the Plugable seemed to work more consistently and would be more likely to provide support if needed. Also, the Plugable has one more USB port (important to me). After a long and irritating setup, I finally got this working on my 2 laptops and my desktop. In the end, it works great with a couple of caveats. The most important one is that if you want to use your computer for 3D applications or gaming, you HAVE to run the cable from your primary display directly to your computer and not through this device.
QUICK TIP: Get the latest Display Link driver right from Display Link's site or by going through Plugable's site before you ever even plug this device in. There will be an on-screen prompt during installation for when to plug it in. When it asks you to restart, DO IT
Okay, here was my experience.
As mentioned, I bought this to allow me to dock my primary laptop in 2 locations. I also wanted to dock a second laptop on occasion. And, one location also has a desktop in which I want to be able to swap, similarly to a KVM. KVM won't work because the whole point is to plug and unplug as few cables as possible to the laptops to make it work.
In the end, the connections for making things work are:
Laptop 1: Power, 1x USB, and if I want 3D apps the primary display HDMI input
Laptop 2: Power, 1x USB - no 3D ever needed
Desktop: Power, Ethernet, 1x USB, Primary display HDMI input
THE CONNECTIONS
At the primary station I have plugged into the Plugable unit: HDMI primary 1920x1200 monitor, DVI secondary 1080 monitor, Headset, Keyboard that has built-in hub, Mouse, Webcam, USB hub built into Dell monitor, Xbox controller, and external hard drive.
I use a 1 ft female to male HDMI cable from the Plugable so that I can easily swap whether the primary display gets plugged into Plugable, the laptop, or into an extension going to the desktop. This is so I can use 3D apps when needed.
THE SETUP PROCESS
I started the setup on my desktop. That was my first mistake. If I had started on a laptop I would have had the display and keyboard to more easily troubleshoot along the way.
Per the instructions, I plugged it in, and it installed itself. "Sweet!" I thought. It was basically acting as a USB hub at this point but the monitors didn't immediately work. A reboot fixed that. Then I plugged in a pair of headphones into the headphone jack on Plugable. Everything crashed. I tried this several times and found that if any headset was plugged in, it would crash. I really thought I had a defective unit. I had tried the driver that came with it, the Microsoft default, and the newest from DisplayLink's site. Nothing worked.
After spending a bit trying to debug the desktop's sound issue, I got irritated enough to give it up and started a return process. Then I figured what the heck, I'll plug it into the laptop. Sure enough, an install and a reboot later and everything worked perfectly, including the sound.
With my motivation back to get the desktop working, I dug deeper and ultimately found that USB 3.0 drivers are still imperfect and Windows doesn't always handle them the best. I found the model for my USB 3.0 hardware, downloaded the latest driver, uninstalled Microsoft's default driver, and installed the new one. A reboot later everything worked on the desktop.
THE IMPORTANT THING HERE
It seems like a lot of people are having USB 3.0 related issues. If you are, try finding your specific USB 3 hardware and get the newest driver for it. It just might work.
NOW FOR THE PRODUCT ITSELF....
DISPLAY:
Works great. I haven't had any frame rate issues using 2 monitors through the Plugable, even while watching Netflix or YouTube. Based on other reviews for this and other products, I think the displays' consistency will depend on how much traffic the other components are handling at a given time. See Ethernet...
AUDIO:
So far so good. I'm still testing it. It is as good as the audio out on my desktop, but the Dell laptop puts out more power and feels a little cleaner on its own. I have yet to try it with plugging in my amp to it. If you have a dedicated sound card or built in HiFi DAC I would definitely recommend sticking with plugging in straight to that and not through the Plugable.
USB:
All working great. Keyboard is responsive and mouse doesn't seem to lag at all.
ETHERNET:
To be fair here, I haven't used it. However, here's my thought: I wouldn't use it. The reason is that the added traffic is probably not worth the usability. I feel like if anything would contribute to latency, it'd be Ethernet. If you're using a desktop, why bother? Just plug a cable straight in to the tower. It should be capable of higher speeds that way anyways. For laptops, my opinion and preference is to use the Wifi. I don't feel like Ethernet through the USB 3 would be faster with all the other traffic going on, and may only cause issues. Again, I have not directly tested this theory, and please correct me if I am wrong. I'll also report back if I do get around to testing that out.
If anything changes I'll definitely update this review. For now I feel like it is definitely making things easier for me by only having to plug a power cable and a USB 3 cable to "dock" my laptop. When I want games or 3D apps I have one more: the primary display. I've set this all up so that primary display is very easy to switch around. I really like that I can bring in another computer and plug it in as well. The only thing is that I'll make sure to get Display Link installed first onto the computer I want to plug in, so things work as expected.
I'll recommend it. Might buy a third soon for another location. It is not perfection, but I believe that to be in largely the lack of ability of current technology. This might be as good as it gets for this type of setup, for now.
UPDATE 8/15/2016:
Adding the 5th star because these things have held up great and because Plugable is active and a pleasure to deal with.
I now have a third one of these and all three of them are working great.
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 4 |
|---|---|
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 2 |
