“The CalDigit Thunderbolt Station is the most stable Thunderbolt dock we’ve tested, and that’s an important victory in and of itself,” Jim Tanous reports for TekRevue. “During our multi-week testing period, we connected a variety of displays, external hard drives, thumb drives, and adapters to the CalDigit dock, and everything worked as expected. No freezes, no need to power cycle, it just worked.”
“This is a pet peeve of ours, the CalDigit dock does not include a Thunderbolt cable, a trend we’ve noticed with Thunderbolt docks,” Tanous reports. “We certainly understand the economics behind the decision, especially in light of how much Thunderbolt cables cost compared to cables for other technologies, but it’s unfortunate that products are still shipping today without the necessary cables in the box. With this in mind, you’ll have to factor in the cost of a Thunderbolt cable with the dock’s price [US$199 MSRP], unless you have a spare already on hand.”
“If you are primarily looking for USB 3.0 and networking support, the CalDigit is the only Thunderbolt dock that we can clearly recommend at this point. The other products on the market either lack too many features or suffer from functionality issues,” Tanous reports. “So if you’re looking to add some more ports to a new MacBook Air or, more interestingly, if you’re looking to add USB 3.0 support to 2011-era Macs, the CalDigit Thunderbolt Station might be just what you’re looking for.”
Read more in the full review here.