Good, well-designed, non-expensive docks

I'm getting a 23" monitor, and I'd love to be able to hook up my laptop immediately, when I get home. The official ThinkPad dock is expensive and ugly as sin, so I was wondering if you've successfully found (and perhaps bought) some docks yourselves?

In this case it's a T500, but I'd love to see some set-up pictures just for kicks.

 

I bought the original, new one for X200 for $100 on eBay - did you try looking there? Wasn't *that* expensive. It doesn't have an amazing artistic design, but it looks fine to me.

 

In the universal dock is a problem with video output and interface connections. In most of these docks a maximum display resolution of 1600x1200 or even less. One USB 2.0 port poorly combined with Gigabit Ethernet ports. Oh, and power jack would still have to connect separately.

Therefore, looking only at models with connecting via expresscard.

As example of tech spec Belkin : High Speed Docking Station

 

I personally think the Thinkpad dock looks fine. So I guess like the poster above said, look at an Expresscard dock. You're going to need to plug in power, and at minimum, the Expresscard. Other docks you'll need to plug in separate VGA, USB, audio, and ethernet ports. If all you want is VGA, then you might as well just stick with the laptop itself.

 

I bought the ThinkPad Advanced Mini Dock for my T500 for about $90 brand new on eBay early last year. That might help a bit on the cost aspect.

 

Same here, paid $150 for a brand new one on Ebay. Dunno how the docks for the T-series looks in comparison, but the Ultrabase looks alright. How can you really make a dock look "cool"?

Love having one, though. At first I bought the Lenovo docking station (as a cheaper option) that you hook up with a USB-cable, and connects USBs, Ethernet and monitor, but that looked more messy, didn't offer a DisplayPort, and would have me connection a USB and power cable everytime I come home.

 

The usb dock is limited in bandwidth due to the usb 2.0, which means that if you have a large monitor connected to the dvi port, it would limit the bandwidth of all other ports such as ethernet and usb hub, etc.

I recommend that you get the advanced mini dock or advanced dock instead.

 

Do any of the docks have tilt, if I want to use it next to a desktop computer?

I find it pretty difficult to find out the difference between the models, and the comparison service isn't very helpful to say the least.

And man, that Belkin device does not sound good.

 

what do you mean by tilt? are you saying whether the thinkpads are tilted when it is on the dock?

I use the Toshiba Dynadock U with my X301.

http://www.computerriver.com/images/toshiba docking station.png

 

Adjustable tilt, so it's posssible for it to (almost) stand up vertically on the stand.

 

for t500:


ThinkPad Essential Port Replicator
Lenovo Support & downloads - ThinkPad Essential Port Replicator - Overview

Only one VGA for monitor.


ThinkPad Advanced Mini-Dock
Lenovo Support & downloads - ThinkPad Advanced Mini-Dock - Overview

One VGA and one Dual link DVI-D (or two dvi-d single link with dual-cable).

 

Id be interested in some cheap laptop stands, are there any decent that allow to open my laptop and use it vertically, as in being opened 180 degrees and facing me and change stands angle?
Sorry, didnt want to hijack this thread but thought that this might be relevant.

 

Feel free. No reason not to ask about bout - besides, I'm interested in the same thing.