PowerExpand Elite 13-in-1 Thunderbolt 3 Dock

Dateline: A Desk Drowning in a Sea of Wires, 1:08 AM. In the savage jungle of the modern workspace, the enemy is chaos. It’s a creeping, insidious tangle of power bricks, dongles, and adapters—a Medusa’s head of plastic and copper that strangles your productivity and frays your last nerve. You need a central nervous system. You need a master plan. You need a single, elegant brick of pure, unadulterated connectivity that can bring order to the madness. Enter the Anker 577 Docking Station. It doesn’t swagger; it sits. A dense, cool, metallic slab that feels less like a computer accessory and more like a mysterious artifact from a more advanced civilization. The name is modest, but the specs are a declaration of total war on clutter: 13-in-1. Thirteen ports. A veritable hydra of high-speed potential, ready to absorb every peripheral you can throw at it. But the real magic, the sacred covenant of this device, is the single Thunderbolt 3 cable. This is the One Cable to Rule Them All. You plug this solitary, elegant cord into your laptop, and the world changes. Suddenly, you have a firehose of 85-watt power flowing into your machine, keeping it juiced for the long haul. Simultaneously, your dual 4K monitors blink to life, a sprawling digital vista that makes a single laptop screen feel like peering through a keyhole. Your keyboard, your mouse, your external hard drive, your ethernet cable—everything connects to the dock, leaving your desk a landscape of Zen-like simplicity. It’s a revolution. A single act of connection that replaces a frantic, multi-step ritual of plugging and unplugging half a dozen different things. The Anker 577 becomes the brain stem, the central hub through which all data flows. And it flows fast. We’re talking 10 Gbps data transfers, an SD card reader that inhales photos like a starving man at a banquet, and a dedicated 18W port on the front to keep your phone topped off while you work. And here’s the kicker, the part that makes this whole proposition verge on the surreal: the price. In the rarefied air of "real" Thunderbolt docks—a market full of high-priced gatekeepers and extortion-level fees—the Anker 577 stands as a monument to common sense. It delivers the same face-melting performance and connectivity as its far more expensive rivals without demanding you take out a second mortgage. It’s the smart money, the thinking man’s choice, a subversive act of pure, high-tech value. This is not just a docking station. It is a declaration of independence. Independence from clutter, from dongles, from the tyranny of a thousand different chargers. It has taken the chaotic, multi-pronged assault of modern peripherals and funneled it into a single, elegant, and shockingly powerful solution. It doesn’t just clean up your desk; it cleans up your workflow, leaving you with nothing to focus on but the work itself. And in the dead of night, when the deadlines are closing in, that kind of clarity is priceless.

The Good: A small thunderbolt 3 dock by Anker. The concept of a small dock seems to be mostly avoided but has been tackled by Anker in a good looking, compact package. The Bad: Poor description of specifications for the dock make it hard to find out if this is a good solution for you. The bottom Line: While it is hard to check if this product is for you, this is a Thunderbolt 3 hub with the Anker badge on it. If it doesn't fit your needs, its easy to return. If it breaks (within warranty), top notch customer service will care for you. What comes in the box: The dock A Thundebolt 3 USB C cable (Interfaces with dock and Thunderbolt device) A power brick (Interfaces with dock and power cable) A Power cable (Interfaces with outlet and power brick) The number one thing that has kept me from purchasing a Thunderbolt 3 hub is the lack of reliability, compatibility, or longevity that tends to be associated with this technology. We all have setups of varying complexity and I am hoping this helps someone with similar needs as mine. For starters, from the instruction manual, these are the listed ports and some specs: Front Pannel 1. SD 4.0 Card Slot 2. Micro SD Card Slot 3. Top USBC 10GB/s, 5V/0.9A (4W) 4. Bottom USBC 10GB/s, 5V/3A (15W), 9V/2A (18W) 5. 3.5mm Jack 6. USBA 5GB/s, 5V/1.5A (7.5W) Back Pannel 1. Top, USBC Thunderbolt 3 port, Downstream 5V/3A max, daisy chain up to 5 devices. 2. Bottom, USBC Thunderbolt 3 port, Upstream [5V/3A (15W), 9V/3A(27W), 15V/3A (45W), 20V/4.25A (85W)] 3. HDMI 2.0 4k60 4. 3x USBA 5B/s 5. Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbps Speed: 40 GB/s Input: 20V/9A (180W) Compatable with OSX and WinOS 4.9 x 3.5, 1.6 in; 17.3Oz 125.8 x 88.5 x 41.9 mm; 490g Context: 61W draw from a MacBook Pro, 2560 x 1440 monitor, mechanical keyboard, occasional SD card, 3.5mm Jack, USBC charge usage, USBA peripheral/storage use. Some things I have noticed regarding front panel ports: The most interesting thing comes in the form of the top (3) and bottom (4) USBC outs. They both have the same data rate, however, the power provided is different. If you want to charge your device, use the bottom USBC port and a cable capable of handling the power delivery. Using the 3.5mm Jack (5) means that you have to switch your output device. This is something that must be specified in your OS and had to learn about mid zoom meeting. Some things I have noticed regarding back panel ports: If you are using the downstream (1) port, make sure your device is actually making use of the Thunderbolt protocol, otherwise, this will only work at USB 2.0 data speeds, effectively invalidating the reason for purchasing this dock. I used this port for my USBC to Display port connection and it works flawlessly. The power draw from the upstream (2) port is probably using the 45W protocol since my device is limited to 61W charging. However, my usage does not seem to prevent my device from charging faster than it discharges. The USBA ports (4) do not have a power rating associated with them. However, they supply enough power to run my mechanical keyboard with backlight without issue. The ethernet (5) connector is Gigabit. The connector does not have any specifications attached to it for Power over Ethernet (PoE) or any kind of IEEE 802.3 apart from speeds achievable. Overall, this is a great Thunderbolt hub for a simple user like myself and I hope that it remains simple as I add more monitors in the future. I enjoy the convenience and simplicity of the hub and how plug and play my computer has become. I also like the small footprint of the dock, taking minimal desk space especially compared with those large hubs that seem to have a horizontal support. I will make an effort to update this as things pop and longevity milestones are hit.

I decided to purchase this product based on the brand's reputation and my need for a powerful dock that would reduce wire clutter and free up ports on my XPS15 2019 laptop, which is one of the most powerful work laptops on the market. As an artist, I use a Wacom screen tablet with 1080p resolution for work and have an additional 4K 27-inch LG C type connectivity screen. However, after using the dock for a few days, I noticed that my screen tablet and system performance were a bit laggy. Despite changing the wires of input and output ports, the performance remained affected. The dock tends to heat up quite a bit if all ports on the back are in use, but this is a standard warning on the product and is normal. When I removed the dock and went back to connecting all devices directly to my laptop, the performance was normal again. This suggests that the dock was unable to handle all the data through a C-type cable in my laptop. Unfortunately, I had exhausted my 7-day replacement period while testing various combinations to maximize performance. As a result, I am now stuck with a 50K purchase with no way of getting a refund or replacement. Anker support was unable to assist me because the product was purchased from Amazon and Amazon does not offer any warranty assistance. Although I'm not entirely sure if it was my laptop or the dock that was unable to handle the data, my laptop works fine when all the same devices are connected directly. Therefore, I caution potential buyers to be careful before making this purchase.

I was fighting with intermittent connection issues using an Anker USB-C hub. Tried several things, but no luck. This, while substantially more expensive, has been rock solid in the 2 days I’ve used it (with the old set up, I’d have seen the monitor flicker a dozen times a day!!). I just wish it supported displaylink to permit a second monitor (obviously it would also need a second hdmi port)

I’ve been considering a device like this for my 2019 15 inch MacBook Pro for some time but couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger. I was relying on an Anker USB c hub and all four thunderbolt ports on my Mac to accommodate two external displays, Ethernet, two external drives and so on. Not the tidiest solution but it got the job done. However once I took delivery of a Dell laptop from my office, switching between my Mac and the Dell became quite annoying, and even more convoluted. My employer agreed to pay for a dock, so the purchase become a no brainer. The Anker 13-1 checked all the boxes for both my personal Mac and employer issued Dell. Now I only need to manage one Thunderbolt cable when I switch between laptops. Everything works as it should. The unit runs quite hot, but after 4 months of daily use there does not appear to be any issues. My work space is considerably less cluttered now, and only having to worry about one cable connected to either laptop really is a gamer changer. As for value, well it is rather expensive, but competitively priced. The build quality appears to be excellent. Highly recommended.

NOTE: Anker will not service/warranty this product if purchased through SUPERSALESUSA. SUPERSALESUSA have yet to respond to my warranty claim. When it was working it worked pretty well. It did seem to have a re-connection lag when waking a computer from sleep. The device still charges my Mac and connects me to my external display but my Mac cannot recognize external drives or ethernet connections that are connected to the Anker.

I was hopeful after reading the other reviews on this dock, but things are not so rosey. It didn't work well with my Dell XPS running Ubuntu in clamshell mode, I'd have to open the laptop to get things to wake up, and then close it. It would have been handy if the power button actually woke the computer as well. With my M1 MacBook Pro, it worked better with clamshell mode, and the laptop would wake up fine. The major downside is that the ethernet port doesn't connect at all. It is recognized on both systems, but it thinks the cable is unplugged. I had high hopes as the build quality seems great, and it is a nice piece of kit on the desk. But I will be returning it and going with something else.