Summary

• Satechi's Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station is sleek and offers a wide range of ports.
• It's reasonably priced and compatible with various devices, including external displays and eGPUs.
• The main downside is that it gets quite hot during use.

Satechi is one of the more prominent brands when it comes to USB hubs and docking stations (and other accessories), and the company has been building up its portfolio with some great additions. The recent Satechi Thunder 4 Multi-Display Docking Station is another great one.

With a very slender design and a wide supply of ports, all for a pretty reasonable price, Satechi's latest docking station delivers a pretty fantastic experience across the board. The only real downside is that it gets pretty hot while I'm using it.

About this review: Satechi sent us the Tunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station for this review. The company had no input in its content.

Pricing and availability

Satechi launched the Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station on May 30th, 2024, and it's available directly on the company's website and on Amazon. The dock comes in at $300, which puts it in line with most other premium docking stations. In fact, it's cheaper than some of the competition.

What I like

It's very sleek and feels premium

I've reviewed many a docking station in my day, and right off the bat, the most surprising thing about the Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station is just how sleek it is. THis is a very, very thin dock compared to most others I've tried, coming in at under 19mm in thickness. It is slightly wider and deeper than something like, say, the Plugable 16-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station, but not by much, and the overall footprint of this dock ispretty small. It can fit into a desk setup pretty easily.

It looks and feels pretty great, too. The dual-tone silver and black look suits this design very well, and the chassis is mostly made of metal that feels very solid and durable. Not every dock nails this mix of metal and plastic, but this one really looks very sleek and it avoids feeling like corners were cut in terms of build quality. The bottom of the dock has rubber feet that do their job well, too.

While we're at it, I also want to praise the inclusion of a power button, as I always do. Every dock should have one, as it makes it that much easier to save power without having to unplug everything.

It has a great supply of ports

Even with the very sleek design of the Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station, we still get an excellent array of ports here. With some docking stations, it can sometimes feel like you're limited, either because the dock focuses too much on modern USB-C ports or because it only has Thunderbolt 4 downstream and not much else. Satechi offers a very good balance here, and almost anyone is bound to have their needs met.

For the the more old-school peripherals, two USB Type-A ports on the front let me use my mouse and keyboard with no worries. For more modern things, you have three Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports on the back, which can handle external displays and yes, even an external GPU. I've used my eGPU through this docking station to edit photos in Lightroom and it seemed to run at its usual speed with no worries. This is with all USB ports being used, with another one handling my LG UltraWide monitor and one for my webcam.

But then there are also two HDMI ports if you don't have a USB-C monitor. Or, you can combine those USB-C and HDMI ports to use up to four displays at the same time. The Thunderbolt 4 downstream ports use the typical Thunderbolt bandwidth, while the HDMI ports rely on a technology called DisplayLink.

To top it off, you get Gigabit Ethernet, a full-size SD card reader, and a headphone jack. There's plenty to love here.

What I don't like

It gets pretty hot

It's pretty hard to complain about a docking station that does its job well, since there isn't that much to analyze in the first place. However, if I had to point out anything, it would be that the docking station gets very warm. duing my most regular use, where the only active peripherals are the monitor, mouse, and keyboard, the docking station is already very warm pretty much constantly. I suspect the comapct chassis doesn't help, and having a metal frame like also means that heat is being dissipated directly using the chassis, so it appears warmer than you'd expect.

Otherwise, of course, there are things I like more about other docks. For example, the OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock costs the same but has an all-metal chassis and a built-in power supply, both of which I love a bit more than what we get here. Of course, that comes at the cost of a much bigger chassis.

Should you buy the Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station?

There are plenty of docking stations out there, and no one solution is necessarily ideal for everyone. That being said, the Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station checks a ton of boxes, with a very sleek, premium design that still includes all the ports most people will need. It's also a pretty reasonable price, cheaper than a few competitors like the CalDigit TS4. If you're looking for a docking station, this is a great option that's worth considering, eeven though there are also other great docks fighting for that top spot.

You should buy the Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station:

• You want a docking station that's thin and compact
• You want a varied supply of ports including downstream THunderbolt, USB Type-A, and HDMI
• You like having a power button

You should NOT buy the Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station if:

• You want features like a built-in power supply
• You want the most ports possible