Plugable's new dock supports five displays from one USB-C port
Unlike solutions such as CalDigit's recently announced $370 TS5 dock that only supports a trio of 4K displays when connected to a computer that supports Thunderbolt 5, the Plugable UD-7400PD works with machines featuring at least a video-capable USB 3.2 Gen 2 port. That standard, supporting transfer rates of 10Gbps, debuted back in 2017, meaning Plugable's new dock should work across a large number of existing PCs.
Using its two HDMI connections and three USB-C ports, the dock can drive up to five 4K 60Hz displays, three 8K 30Hz displays, or a combination of the two with four 4K screens plus an additional 8K one. It's all made possible through Synaptics' new DisplayLink DL-7400 chipset and the DisplayLink technology that compresses video feeds on the host computer so they can be transmitted through slower USB-C ports which are then decompressed using dedicated hardware in the dock.
You'll need to install DisplayLink's software on your computer to make it all work, and the approach could result in reduced performance for applications like games that produce a large amount of data. Apps like spreadsheets, by comparison, compress well because they're relatively static. DisplayLink also doesn't support High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) which could prevent you from watching content from streaming platforms like Netflix on the external displays.
The UD-7400PD dock also includes a front-facing 10Gbps USB-C port with 30W of power delivery and two 10Gbps USB-A ports. There's also a 2.5Gbps ethernet port, a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, and a host USB-C port that can charge laptops with up to 140W of power delivery. Given most productivity apps don't require the latest and greatest processors and graphics cards, despite the few downsides of the technology, Plugable's new dock provides an alternate path to an elaborate multi-screen setup without the added costs of upgrading all your gear to be Thunderbolt 5 compatible.
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