Sure, it has excellent bandwidth and some nice pass through features to the CPU but the cable and port seem too fragile.
I have a TB16 dell docking station for my Latitude laptop. It connects over usb-c with thunderbolt 3. If I bump my desk, jostle my laptop a bit, or even adjust a cable on my desk, the connection between the laptop and dock seems to break and everything has to be restarted. Something finally broke and now the dock and laptop can't connect. Making my dual monitors and stand and entire workstation peripherals useless. I have to buy a $100 dock and usb c cable to even attempt to troubleshoot this. It could be the dock shorting out, overheating, or the USB C interface just getting used up and worn in (Had it maybe 4 or 5 months).
I never had this issue with E style docks by dell or the ultrabasr Lenovo Thinkpad docks. Just the USB-C ones. TB3 just has a lot of overhead and features that make reconnecting these cables a pain in the ass
I pretty much only use Dell equipment at offices these days. The Latitudes are pretty reliable. their build quality us much better the last couple of years. Their keyboards are second to Thinkpads. I wouldn't say there is inherently wrong with Dell equipment.
I haven't had good luck with their thunderbolt docks. The USBC style docks seem ok though.
I understand the E-port had to go to make laptops thinner. But the newer docks just arent as reliable. Im starting to regret just not getting an e port laptop.
Sorry for the typos. Its late here. anyone have any experiences with this newer docking tech? is it as buggy and breakable as ive seen and heard? im generally really good with taking care of equipment but this stuff is seemingly extremely fragile.
Elijah Walker
Thunderbolt 3 as a protocol is great
It’s the Type C connector that keeps being bastardized with different regulations, electrical charge/bandwidth/DisplayPort compatibility that cheapens the protocol.
If every Type-C cable and port fully supported Thunderbolt 3, it’d actually be useful. But companies don’t feel like licensing the Thunderbolt 3 protocol from Intel, and it fucks with everything.
Juan Walker
Funny thing, the Precision laptops still have the E-Port.
Oliver Morris
>I understand the E-port had to go to make laptops thinner And that's not really true, the last Latitude with an E-Port was the E7470, I think, and the 7480 and 7490 aren't much thinner. No, this is about Dell trying to peddle Inspirons as Latitudes.
Gabriel Foster
Dell docks are notorious for being shit.
Occasionally I have to deal with D3100's forgetting they have drivers and sharting themselves and it's usually the stupidest fucking thing that needs to be fixed.
Jace Barnes
my personal machine is a 7480. I would get a e7490 but dell has dropped off support for the e-series moving forward. i dont understand if the TB16 dock or WD16 are free of problems yet but a year ago they were still sorting out the firmware. I think I may have a dead TB3 port on my 7480 or a dead TB16 dock. But the odd thing is the dock still charges the laptop but no peripherals ever get attached. Ive checked all the settings and security settings. The damn thing just wont work. Ill have to order a new TB16 tomorrow to start troubleshooting this...
Jonathan Martin
I never had a problem with the Lenovo ultrabase docks. they work well. the e-series occasionally wouldnt register a dock, but would work as intended with a simple redock in most cases.
the new docks are a new game. theyre essentially little motherboards with all the circuitry inside them. they run warm and have a built in fan. i think the previous gen were superior in many ways. the linux support for the TB16 just became semi stable in dec, 2017. still has quirks though and some ports that wont play nice.
I think its pretty neat, since if you think about it, it offers better expandability than PCI Express slots (ignoring bandwidth issues).
Nolan Diaz
Does usb c cable capable of PD also carry TB3 on it? I'm buying a chinky cable so I won't get a clear answer on that, but still even if it's chinese, it's expensive for a cable.
Sebastian Clark
> Is Thunderbolt 3 trash? It's not trash, it's just expensive and mostly unnecessary.
Most of the things Thunderbolt does, USB 3.x can already do.
There are things it can't do which Thunderbolt can, which is where Thunderbolt has its niche, but it's not a big market.
Robert Parker
Everything USB can do, Thunderbolt can do much faster
Zachary Martin
Yeah, but the question is if that extra speed actually benefits you. Forl so many things that USB 3.x is used for, bandwidth either doesn't matter, or is bottlenecked by other things first. There are some things where the extra speed makes a difference, but not many.
Levi Adams
Fair enough
Jaxson Ramirez
I'll take Thunderbolt just to get away from the clusterfuck that is USB type-C right now. This was supposed to be the one-and-done connector. Why does the market have to be so fragmented?
Henry Bailey
USB C is shit who thought that the board should be on the fucking device
should have been like lightning
also garbage implementation of the spec in terms of power and video/audio
Connor Jackson
So Thunderbolt is FireWire 2.0?
Jason Myers
Always has been, that's why apple were the first to introduce it
