There's no shortage of docking stations to choose from if you want to connect more peripherals to a modern laptop. But not many are on the same level as the StarTech Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station. Its main selling point is that it can drive up to four 4K displays at 60Hz, all using a single port on your laptop, which is something we've rarely seen in other docks.

But that's not the only selling point. This dock has plenty of ports for peripherals, including USB-C, and there's even super-fast Ethernet. It's held back by slightly disappointing build quality, but you'd be very well served in terms of functionality.

About this review: StarTech sent us the Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station for this review. The company had no input in its contents.

Pricing and availability

The StarTech Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station was launched on February 12th, 2024, and it became available from multiple resellers and distribution partners, as well as StarTech's own website.

Officially, the docking station is sold for $330.99, though Amazon seems to have had it for around $320 over the past few weeks. That puts it in the high-end to premium segment, though there are definitely more expensive options out there.

What I like

There are a lot of high-speed ports

A docking station lives and dies by its connectivity capabilities, and StarTech did things almost perfectly here. There are a lot of ports, and very fast ones at that. The HDMI ports support HDMI 2.1 so you get up to 8K displays at 60Hz, and in fact, I believe this is the only docking station I remember using that can fully drive my super-ultrawide monitor at its full resolution (5120x1440) and refresh rate (144Hz). Whenever I've tried HDMI in the past, I had to settle for half the framerate, so this is great. Likewise, the DisplayPort connections are DisplayPort 1.4, which also supports 8K at 60Hz using DSC.

Aside from that, there are six USB Type-A ports, three with 10Gbps speeds, two with 5Gbps, and one that's USB 2.0 (480Mbps), but supports higher power delivery to charge a phone or accessory. There's also a single USB-C port, also with 10Gbps speeds, though there's no downstream Thunderbolt. Notably, there's even 2.5Gbps Ethernet, so you can get super-fast wired internet through this dock, too. It's a fairly high-end configuration all around.

Up to four 4K displays

While this could fit into the category above, I think it's worth highlighting by itself because it's a very rare feature on docking stations. Because all of the display outputs are high bandwidth and there's support for Display Stream Compression along with Multi Stream Transport, this dock can actually drive up to four 4K displays at the same time, all running at 60Hz.

That's something that Intel doesn't even officially mention in its specs for Thunderbolt 4, but it's really impressive to be able to do this with a single dock, using just one port on your laptop. The only other docking station I've seen with this capability is from Plugable, and frankly, I'm not equipped to properly test it (I don't have four 4K monitors). Regardless, it's a great capability to have if you need a lot of screens for multitasking.

It has a power button

This may be tiny, but I'll never get tired of appreciating docking stations with power buttons. I like saving energy, and being able to turn off my docking station entirely when I'm done for the day is great. It's become more common recently, but some docks still don't have one, so I'll give StarTech credit for that.

What I don't like

It's all made of plastic

The first downside of the StarTech Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station has to do with its build quality. Not that it's bad by any means, it feels pretty well built and there's a good amount of heft to it. However, the chassis is almost exclusively made of plastic, which definitely feels a bit cheaper than having some metal in there.

This wouldn't be a big deal if the dock was cheap, but compared to the aforementioned Plugable model, that one is slightly cheaper and has a mostly metal chassis. It has all the same ports (except the HDMI ports are faster on the StarTech model), so the cheaper build feels like it could have been avoided.

I also found that, much like on that Plugable dock, the microSD card slot is not good, and cards will almost always get stuck. Not permanently (yet), but they always require some finagling to get them out of the slot. Honestly, I believe these docks may have all the same chips and main board inside, aside from the HDMI port using the more modern HDMI 2.1 specification. The ports are exactly the same and in the same location, which is not uncommon for Thunderbolt docks.

I also wish more docks had built-in power adapters like the OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock, which is still my favorite for that reason alone.

Only one USB-C port

Another thing some might not like is that this docking station only has one USB-C downstream port, and it doesn't support video. It's only a data port, and it's the only one, so there's no downstream Thunderbolt 4 either.

Personally, I think docks make the most sense when they have more legacy ports, such as this one, because most laptops that need docks already have USB-C, which is the problem that docks try to fix. But as a couple of my peripherals do use USB-C now, it would be nice to have one extra USB-C port here, at least.

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

The StarTech Thunderbolt 4 Multi-Display Docking Station is an excellent dock for almost anyone in need of more ports. It has a lot of fast ports, including USB, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, and 2.5Gbps Ethernet, so it's frankly hard to ask for more.

Its biggest downside, aside from the finicky microSD card slot (which sadly isn't exclusive to this dock), is that its made of plastic, but that may not matter to you. I'd say the biggest factor to consider is whether you need HDMI 2.1 support and if you're willing to pay an extra $20 to $30 for it compared to the Plugable TBT4-UDZ, which has slower HDMI ports, but a better build quality. Otherwise, this one is very easy to recommend.

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

• You need a lot of ports for your peripherals
• You have four monitors you want to use, especially if they're 4K
• You like having a power button

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

• You plan to use the microSD card slot frequently
• You don't need HDMI 2.1