OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock review: Big, expensive, ambitious

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$349.99

Today’s Best Price: OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock

OWC’s Thunderbolt Go Dock has one unique selling point in its favor: the lack of an external power brick. This helps reduce cable clutter and, in theory, makes it easier to take this Thunderbolt 4 dock on the go. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite live up to its promise.

Like laptops, Thunderbolt docks can include fairly large power bricks—often weighing as much as the dock itself. However desktop PCs and some game consoles manage to integrate the power transformer right inside the chassis, giving a cleaner, more streamlined look.

Note: Check out our roundup of the best Thunderbolt docks to learn about competing products, what to look for in a Thunderbolt dock, and buying recommendations.

OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock: Features

You could make the case that the OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock combines the best of both worlds: All that’s in the box is a 28-inch Thunderbolt 4 cable, the power cable, and the dock itself. If the OWC has a small pouch where things can be stored, you can tell it’s a travel port. Regardless, the lack of additional cables is a selling point in its favor.

OWC has traditionally served the Mac market, using Thunderbolt as a direct display interface such as an I/O expansion cable. In addition to an HDMI 2.1 port, the Dock Go provides two downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports, as well as a Thunderbolt 4 connection to the host PC. Those additional downstream ports can be used as display connections, though you’ll have to pay an extra $20 or so for a Thunderbolt 4-to-USB-C cable or similar DisplayPort cable. In fact, we used such a cable to drive a second 4K display at 60Hz, confirming that the bandwidth of the Dock Go works as advertised.

Mark Hachman / IDG

It should be noted that the single HDMI 2.1 port is very unique — the large bandwidth it provides technically allows for a 10K display at 120Hz, which is definitely beyond the available hardware today.

Additional ports include a legacy 5Gb/s USB-A port, a 10Gb/s USB-C port, an audio jack, and an SD 4.0 UHS-II card slot on the front; on the back, the port includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports, the HDMI port, a 2.5Gb/s ethernet port, and a pair of 10Gb/s USB-A ports. The port delivers 90W charging power down through the Thunderbolt 4 cable, which runs from the side of the port.

In my experience, the USB-A ports on the back of the dock accommodate some random USB keys and other devices, but they are tightly spaced. If you have an oddly shaped promotional dongle, for example, it may not fit. You can use the front-facing port.

Despite its “Thunderbolt Dock Go” name, the OWC dock is not small; at 9.5 inches long and 3.6 inches deep, it’s bigger than you might expect. It also weighs 2.09 pounds, which is about a pound less than the average laptop weight. The aluminum chassis does a good job of dissipating heat, so the port never heated up beyond a slightly warm temperature in my tests.

Mark Hachman / IDG

OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock: Performance

Although OWC doesn’t list smartphone charging as a selling point, the port certainly generates enough power to quickly charge a smartphone: 9.5W from the front-facing USB- C port, and about 12W if you use a rear Thunderbolt. ports for the same purpose. Otherwise, the USB-A ports produce about 2.5W, enough to charge a smartphone for several hours.

OWC’s Thunderbolt Go Dock connects two 4K displays perfectly; the same for a 4K display and a 1440p widescreen display at 100Hz. OWC’s Thunderbolt Go Dock initially passed our streaming performance tests with flying colors, streaming our 4K60 test video over its integrated ethernet without dropping any frames.

In part, that’s because YouTube streams video at a lower bitrate than we expected. The reason for that became obvious: Although the ethernet port of the port lights up correctly, all the data is transmitted via Wi-Fi, even with the ethernet cable inserted. OWC support referred us to a Realtek Ethernet software driver, but even after installing it, rebooting, disconnecting the port, and running a diagnostic program, the ethernet still failed to work. correctly. Inexplicably, it worked a reboot or two later. After doing this, the port allows reading and writing at the expected speed of our SSD while streaming video.

Should you buy the OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock?

The OWC Thunderbolt Dock Go is probably too small and heavy to take on a business trip, but it is is the possible. It appears that you need to install a software driver to enable ethernet, however, if and when the driver works. And at a $349 MSRP, you’ll pay for the privilege. We really appreciate what OWC set out to do here with the Thunderbolt Dock Go, but its size, price, and driver issues mean it falls short of an Editor’s Choice award.