Yup when you see both the price and the size of these docks, you gotta wonder why even bother with buying a laptop in the first place. If the goal is to hook up two 4K monitors, I'd rather have, say, a desktop computer powered by a threadripper.
> why even bother with buying a laptop in the first place. If the goal is to hook up two 4K monitors
That might not be a full-time goal. Some want a machine that works on the move but can be expanded to bigger screens and such when at certain locations (office and/or home). A laptop and dock allow this compromise.
It is a compromise, not one suitable for all. But it is the list inconvenient option for many.
> Some want a machine that works on the move but can be expanded to bigger screens and such when at certain locations
I wouldn't say "some". Probably 90% of developers I know require exactly this, in fact off the top of my head I can't think of any who don't. Even the permanent, full-remote, no-really-there-is-literally-no-office types want to sit in a different room sometimes or work from a coffee shop.
It's pretty rare to have a "workstation" setup that cannot be moved.
I guess I'm one of those devs that you can't think of then. Main rig for remote work at home, laptop for the occasional trip to the lab. Honestly I can't imagine using a laptop for anything too demanding, the shitty thermals make me cringe.
Personally I like having a laptop for on the go and a desktop that’s always in one place and use syncing to make it pretty seemless to switch between them.
That's a good solution, but it comes with its own set of compromises. I think the argument here really is:
'... where we came in. Having to buy an external dock is such a compromise! I want to have all the ports on my laptop!'
'But if all your peripherals are connected directly, you need to connect and disconnect them every time, so you have to compromise on mobility. Isn't this...'
And good luck getting anything close to RTX 3090Ti performance in a laptop. It'd basically be a toasted oven on your lap.
Desktops can just sink a ton more heat, and as process shrinks and die size increases have gotten us less and less additional performance each year, we're just pushing power up to the point now where a TOTL gaming desktop is pulling close to 1KW. A laptop will never come close. If you really do want to try a literal desktop CPU in a laptop, there are mfgs like Eurocom and Sager that will sell you one, just don't expect it not to throttle a lot under actual heavy workloads.
To be honest I see this as a win for laptops nowadays. I still work from home most days of the week and I prefer not to have a power hungry workstation turned on all day, especially with current electricity prices. Because of unfortunate timing of when my contract expired I already pay around 800 euros per month for energy
>>Because of unfortunate timing of when my contract expired I already pay around 800 euros per month for energy
Wait, what? Are you like cryptomining or something? That's actually insane. I charge two electric cars at home, work from home using a powerful workstation, and my electricity is about £100/month. How do you manage to spend 800 euro a month????
Curious where you are? I run a threadripper workstation with a 3070Ti and 2x 1440p monitors for ~10 hours per day, and my household's electricity bill is ~£40/month.
Presumably people have a dedicated workstation that they use most of the time, but not infrequently want to have a portable computer that they can take places (cafes/trips/transport/co-working spaces/etc).
I find it surprising that the appeal of the above would be confusing for anyone.
Well, I mean, 2 4k monitors is possible on a laptop in laptop configuration these days (4k internal + 4k add-on attached slide-out), so I don't see why it's an unreasonable thing to have where you dock a laptop.
Sure, you could buy a separate desktop for that, but if you also go portable, don't want to bother with some kind of online sync solution, and want to move between laptop mode for on the go and something docked to big monitors and a no laptop keyboard/mouse for when you are at your primary workspace, getting a good laptop plus a dock rather than spending more for a laptop plus a separate desktop which makes you have to compromise on syncing somehow makes a lot of sense.
(Obviously, if you need desktop processing power, thermal envelopes mean that laptops aren't going to be competitive. But if that's your need, you aren't going to be looking at laptops, and how to connect peripherals isn't going to be your limiting factor.)
I have multiple desks. Each of them has their own docking station.
The only things that move around are my laptop and I. I don't want to carry around a desktop computer and plug in power, screens, and USB hub every time I switch desks.
Yes, but companies keep wanting me to use the corporate laptop, not my much more capable desktop on a dedicated drive. So technically a good dock is not a bad investment in that scenario since you aren't paying for the laptop.
