Would there be any benefit to getting a Surface Dock instead of a powered USB hub?

[Stephaaaan]

Powered USB 3.0 hubs are a lot cheaper than the Surface Dock, and you can find all sorts of USB adapters for pretty cheap, like video adapters and Ethernet to USB adapters. Would there be any benefits to getting the dock, instead of a powered hub? Would the dock provide any better performance?

 

[leeshor]

The biggest benefit I see is in your post. One device.

 

[Stephaaaan]

The biggest benefit I see is in your post. One device.

With my USB hub, I've noticed that some of my peripherals will lag when a lot of things are going on, and devices charge a lot slower with the powered hub than plugged directly into the Surface Book's USB port. Would the dock provide any improvement and increased power? I don't care about how pretty it looks behind the laptop screen... having a few USB adapters doesn't look terrible.

 

[ScottyS]

I use a 7 port USB 3 hub which has 12V/3Amp power adapter. It has 2 charging ports that charge my iPhone twice as fast and I can also charge my iPad with it.

I got to plug all 3 cables in: USB, mDP and power cable, but have them bundled together to make it easier. The advantage of the dock is as @leeshor said, one devise, one thing to plug in.

 

[hughlle]

i found peripheral lag when using a displaylink dock. with an external powered hdd plugged in and a network cable, my wirelss mouse was near unusable. just jerked across the screen.

 

[jnjroach]

Your biggest advantages of using the Surface Dock:

• DisplayPort for higher resolution external monitors and chaining
• PCIe Support (Surface Connector to Dock)
• One Connection for Peripherals and Power

 

[ScottyS]

i found peripheral lag when using a displaylink dock. with an external powered hdd plugged in and a network cable, my wirelss mouse was near unusable. just jerked across the screen.

I had that jerky mouse too if I plugged the USB receiver into the hub, but found it didn't have that when it was plugged in away from hub such as on my monitor (I have a USB cable from hub to monitor USB in and 4 USB out ports on monitor).