Product Details
- Product Dimensions: 3.1 x 1.8 x 8.8 inches ; 1.1 pounds
- Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
- ASIN: B001H9O73O
- California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
- Item model number: PA3575U-1PRP
List Price :
Price : $99.00
You Save : $50.99 (34%)
Product Description
Toshiba Dynadock USB Docking Station PA3575U-1PRP Port Replicators
Toshiba Dynadock U Universal USB Connect Docking Station
Technical Details
- One cable connection from your PC to all your devices
- Universal compatibility with all Windows-based PCs including Vista 32- or 64-bit
- Built-in HD Digital Video card supports up to 1920x1200 resolution
- Built-in HD Digital Video card supports up to 1920x1200 resolution
- Space-saving upright slim design reduces cable clutter
- View up to three displays simultaneously
- Hot swappable - add or remove most devices without rebooting the PC
- Easily and safely undock with undock button
Costumer Reviews
Overall, I'm very satisfied with this product. Instead of having 6-7 cords I plug and unplug into my laptop every single time I take it with me, there's just one. That's incredibly convenient. Also, my laptop has just 3 USB ports, and the dock has 6, so I can keep all my devices plugged in all the time. And when I want to eject the dock, I don't have to take care of them one by one... there's a special icon for "undocking" which allows you to eject the whole dock.
There is one compatibility issue however. So right now on my laptop, I'm dual booting Windows Vista and Windows 7 RC. I use 7 RC almost all the time, because it simply is much better than Vista. The one problem I've had with 7 RC though, is that I cannot install the video driver for this dock. (You see, to get the dock to work with your audio, video and network, you have to install a driver for each of them.) I've tried several times to install both the driver that came on the disc, and the latest one from the site. And every single time, my computer would crash, and I would not be able to restart 7 RC because some files were corrupt or something. I had to do a system restore every time. Eventually I gave up, and resorted to plugging my VGA cord in my laptop like I did before purchasing the dock. Not that big a deal though. I mean it's understandable... Windows 7 hasn't even been released yet, and nobody's really had a chance to create drivers for it.
So that's the one problem that I've had with this dock and Windows 7. Not sure if this is the case with Vista, because like I said, I don't really use it. Let me note, however, that at one point after I installed the driver, I did have a few minutes with the monitor displaying, and everything worked great. I had a monitor, speakers, a mouse, a keyboard, an external hard drive, a TV tuner, a printer, and a network cable all plugged in, and everything worked fine... no lag at all.
I'd say if you're looking for a dock, this is probably the best one out there. Has everything an average user could possibly need, and works fantastically. Well, almost...
EDIT: I have to mention, my monitor's resolution is 1920x1200 and the dock had no problem displaying this the one time I got it to work. And like I said, even though I had like 7 different things going on over one USB cord, there was absolutely no lag. I feel like I have to mention this because I saw a few reviews which complained about it. So if it's slow, it's mostly likely your system, and not the dock.
UPDATE 3/16/2010: I have now been using this product for almost a year, and I am very happy with it. As I mentioned before, it allows for incredible freedom for laptop users. You can have all the hard drives and TV tuners and peripherals as you would with a desktop, and then something as easy as a single click, you could pick up your laptop and go.
I would like to mention that since I wrote this review, I have moved on to the final release of Windows 7 (Pro), and a new set of drivers have been released, and everything works great (including the video)! There are two minor problems I still see with the dock. First, although the video now works, it can be a little laggy when running full screen videos. It works fine when running YouTube sized videos and doing most other things, so it's not so bad. The second problem I see is that when you're undocking it, it can be a bit tricky because you may still have some applications hanging on to some of your peripherals, and you'll get a message telling you so, but it's hard to tell which ones. For example even after I close Media Center, it still has some background process running, which prevents me from unplugging my TV tuner. Anyways, the workaround for that is to just turn off your computer and unplug the dock.
UPDATE 5/13/2011: It's been two years now, and not much has changed since my last update. The dock is still working well, with no quality issues. I don't use the VGA port anymore because I often watch full-screen videos and as previously mentioned, this causes noticeable lag. For this reason I also uninstalled the dock's video driver, because when switching between monitors in Windows 7, it would sometimes switch to the dock's monitor, which wasn't actually there, and I would find my mouse wandering somewhere off screen. So my tip is to uninstall the dock's video driver if you are no using it. Another tip I can offer has to do with disconnecting the dock. As previously mentioned, if you have a program or process which is using a peripheral attached to the dock, you will not be able to disconnect the dock. The workaround is to end said process (using Windows Task Manager) before disconnecting the dock. But if you disconnect your dock often, this can be a pain. An easier solution is to create a 'batch file', which is a file that executes a set of commands (in this case, terminating a specific process) whenever opened. In my case, I have the batch file which ends the process 'ehrecvr' which is part of Windows Media Center, and which keeps my TV tuner from being disconnected. The batch file is located on the desktop, and whenever I need to disconnect the dock, I double-click it, and within two seconds, BOOM, process ended. There are a bunch of sites that explain how to create a batch file, and it's really really easy. Just search for "batch kill process", or something along those lines.
I am using this docking station to connect my Dell laptop (XP Home) to an Acer 22" widescreen LCD monitor via a DVI cable. I have also connected my keyboard, mouse, printer, backup drive, and speakers to this device. They are all working well though there are some issues.
First the pros:
1) I am able to get higher resolutions (up to 1680 by 1050) though for personal preference I have set it to 1440 by 900.
2) I am able to view DVDs in full screen and also video chat using Skype without any problems.
3) For graphics/videos it is using drivers from DisplayLink, which has good support. They seem to be actively working to resolve any lingering issues and you can always download the latest drivers directly from the DisplayLink web site. I upgraded mine to the latest from their site.
Issues:
1) The installation wasn't painless. For some reason the audio didn't work at first and I had to re-install the audio drivers from the CD separately to resolve that issue.
2) I am unable to view videos from hulu.com and YouTube in full-screen mode. I am hoping DisplayLink will fix this in a future update.
Other thoughts:
DisplayLink website also provides the beta drivers for Windows 7 Beta. I installed that too (on Windows 7 Beta) and it was able to detect my monitor and set higher resolutions. However, the mouse movements, animations, and video are still somewhat slow and choppy on Windows 7 Beta. On XP, I didn't have any of these issues.
Toshiba Dynadock U Universal USB Connect Docking Station
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