Belkin Notebook Expansion Dock with your Dell

Just wanted to start a thread about the dock - the Dell rep told me it was exclusive to Dell systems right now so I'm posting in here.


Curious if anyone owns one? Or has any issues? I found my system does not shut down properly when its plugged in and the video quality is not as good as the vga out from the laptop at 1280x1024.

http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&sku=A1154768

 

I looked at it and decided not to buy it.
- My monitor is 1680x1050 and they only support 1600x1200 digitally
- The dock has its own GPU, which makes me think there is a lot of conversion of signal from the notebook to the dock, to the monitor
- A proper docking station from Dell is likely to be released for Inspiron and XPS (and Vostro) soon, they had docks on previous models so most likely, they will have a proper solution going forward too.

Right now I invested in a $49 powered USB hub (7-port) and am very happy with it. My 22-inch LCD monitor also works well over VGA and high res.

But if they optimized that Belkin to the point it supports high resolution over DVI and really acts like a dock... that would be interesting.

Nick

 

I purchased the $55 Kensington from Dell. Basically a 5 port powered USB hub with an Ethernet connection and sound in/out as well. Figured it should do exactly what I want, make it nice and easy for me to plug and unplug everything.

 

Aside from the Video capability and the shut down issue the Belkin dock is pretty smooth. I also used the Targus ACP50 dock and thats terrible compared to this dock. Hopefully they release an update and fix the video, it would be perfect.