577 Thunderbolt Docking Station (13-in-1, Thunderbolt 3) for Laptops, 85W Charging for Laptop, 18W Charging for Phones, 4K Dual Display, 10 Gbps USB-C Data, Ethernet, Audio, SD 4.0

Despite the product description, this works flawlessly with the M1 MacBook Air, the only shortfall being that the dual external display feature does not work for first generation M1 Macs - due to an inherent limitation on the MacBook’s side (it only supports the on-board display plus one 6K display according to Apple’s tech specs). I did call Anker support prior to the purchase but now I can confirm this first hand with my MacBook Air (2020) and 2K display which I’m using. Otherwise it’s sleek and precision built with very small footprint and works like a charm - I love it and easily prefer it over some other USB hubs I have tried. It has an anti-slip feature for vertical placement, so while I have no problem using it in horizontal position, it can slip around a bit if used in this position. The all-metal enclosure is designed to dissipate operating heat with radiator fins on both sides, so it does get considerably warm-hot. While it seems well within the design tolerances, that’s another reason you may wish to use it vertically so as not to obstruct the sides to the environment. It was well worth the rather high price tag - happy with the purchase.

A well-designed and well-built Thunderbolt docking station. The expense of such a Thunderbolt dock is NOT needed for many modern computers and laptops where cheaper USB 3 or USB 3.1 devices will meet common needs well. But this dock does a great job in extending the functionality of specific IT products. In particular, it can keep older Apple devices with built-in support for Thunderbolt but poor USB support genuinely useful for much longer than might be expected. An old 2011 iMac (High Sierra) with its still-nice display but dead internal boot drive becomes useful with modern peripherals including fast SSD drives. This generation of Apple computer only had USB 2 support so the Thunderbolt route was worth going down, allowing the purchase and use of cost-effective modern peripherals that can be re-used elsewhere when the iMac finally dies. Note that the dock DOES NOT provide the ability to boot High Sierra from a cheap external USB3 SSD. You can either boot such an elderly iMac direct from a Thunderbolt drive (Thunderbolt 2 or Thunderbolt 3 using an Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter), or from Firewire, or from the iMac's usb 2 bus. All are a decent upgrade from the original internal hard disk drive! Is the Anker dock recommended? It's a great dock of its type and has behaved flawlessly to its specifications. Well-built and not unreasonably hot in a well-ventilated room even charging up a laptop. Reasonably small - the brick-like power supply can probably be hidden below/behind your desk. Looks quite smart with Apple 'aluminium' computers in particular. Decent range of ports which all worked as specified in the item I bought. On a wider question, is an expensive Thunderbolt dock worthwhile? Yes, in particular cases the expense to extend the life of older equipment that otherwise meets all requirements is cost effective. In other cases, it might be better to simply buy current-generation computers that 'leap-frog' Thunderbolt 3 technology altogether. Depends on the relative costs and disruption to the user. Check the technical specs and think what you want to achieve. I and the user are happy. Minimal disruption to move to the Anker dock, and its fast external USB 3 data drives and Time Machine backup keep an elderly iMac pleasant to use until something else breaks!

I bought an Anker Power Expand Elite 13-in-1 Thunderbolt 3 Dock and installed it on my desktop - attached to a 32" display and a Dell XPS 13 laptop, the unit has remained static on my desktop, normal, light usage. 15months later it stopped working. To Anker's credit they replaced it under warranty. 17 months later the replacement has failed. Anker have declined to replace the unit, they say the 18mth warranty of the original unit has expired. Having paid £200 for a unit like this I expect it to last a good few years not months. Having some knowledge of electronics I have always been concerned, as noted I now realise by other users, about how hot this unit runs - there are no cooling fins or air vents. To quote Anker "I understand your concern that two units have failed. If a product has a basic quality issue, we would issue a recall. But this is not the case with the item you purchased; we have no increased defect rate for this product." Reading various reviews it would appear I am not the only person to suffer a failure. My advice to potential buyers is to steer clear, it is quite possible that like me you will end up with a £200 doorstop.