Plugable USB 3.0 Universal Docking Station for Windows, macOS, ChromeOS (Dual HDMI Monitors or DVI/VGA, Gigabit Ethernet, Audio, 6 USB Ports)

Bought this to use with a Surface Pro tablet. I need to be able to run two monitors and some USB peripherals. The Microsoft OEM equivalent is another £50 and I needed better value for money. Not much desk space and so the tower design was more attractive than some of the "brick" alternatives.The unit feels good quality, nice gloss finish on the case. It's reasonably sturdy, but I did need to blu-tak the base to my desk to stop it being moved around by the weight of cables connected to it and to avoid having to hold it down while plugging into the USB ports.It plugged and played pretty much straight out of the box, after a quick driver update. I did have an issue getting two displays connected, which I think was user error on my part and sorted out by restarting the PC. I logged a ticket with Plugable support and was pleased to get a response overnight and some suggestions to cure the problem, but this wasn't necessary. However, good to know support is there.I'm running two monitors (one on HDMI port, one DVI-HDMI) , speakers, a Logitech MX mouse and keyboard all the time and occasionally a webcam, optical drive and external HDD from the unit with no problems. I've been able to run three screens (Surface and monitors) successfully but don't use this configuration. Occasionally the Surface is replaced by a Lenovo laptop, this has also just plugged and played with no trouble. I've not tried to connect the Ethernet port, but have no reason to doubt this would work.Although the advert says it doesn't support charging, I've been able to charge a phone from the USB sockets but haven't tried with anything larger.Only drawback is that there's no USB 3.0 ports on the back, if I was using the external HDD all the time this would make the installation a bit more untidy, but I don't so it's a moot point.Very happy with the unit and at this price, can't fault it and can't see any obvious alternatives for my requirements.

OK, first things first and with my apologies, this isn't a docking station it's a port replicator. There, my geek shield is back up to full strength now. Here's the thing though, you can call it whatever you like but I would call it a marvel. Not just because it saves on cabling and makes my desk a tad tidier, reduces wear on my expensive ultra-sub-notebook-convertible-flipping-laptop-tablet-ego massager machine and does what it says on the packet. But because I now know if ever I buy a product from Plugable the people at the company tech support will bend over backwards to put things right if things go wrong. If I could give this six stars I would. Yet the first one delivered to me didn't work.Hold on, is this jerk saying that despite getting a broken product he would give the company an extra star rather than remove one for the hassle?Yes. Yes he is. And less of the jerk.Look, things can go wrong with tech kit. Sometimes a rogue model escapes the QA testing regime. It. Does. Happen.It doesn't define the company though, but it does help define what they stand for by how they deal with it. And Plugable dealt with it very well indeed.I review things for a living, have done for the last 25 years in fact. I appreciate the value in how a company treats customers when things do not go smoothly.So what happened? Well, the UD-3900 arrived and I cabled it up and plugged it in. Everything worked except for the main event, the dual display driving function. This was a surprise as Plugable had already sent me an email linking to the latest set of DisplayLink drivers ahead of the unit being delivered. Another brownie point for that.I know a little about tech, or at least as a former Technology Journalist of the Year award winner here in the UK I would hope I still do. I couldn't fathom anything obviously wrong. Next step was the Plugable support forums, and running the diagnostics routine so I could raise a ticket with support. Which I duly did.I got a very quick response, allowing for time differences between the UK and US, from Marc Mounting. I am naming Marc as he went above and beyond, and deserves the kudos.We went through a few things together, and after 48 hours or so of back and forth it became apparent it wasn't working when it should be. The drivers were installed and running OK, the software was installed and running OK, my system (an HP Spectre x360 for the record) just refused point blank to recognise that a DisplayLink device was connected. Ethernet worked fine, USB in and out was fine, but no dual displays.Marc then suggested either he could get another sent from Amazon stock for the next day, or have a pre-tested unit sent direct from the US. I opted for the latter, despite a 10 day delivery wait, as it meant if things still didn't work we could rule out a faulty chipset and do some more detective work together on my laptop. We both suspected by now, I should point out, that something was fried on the device itself.The unit arrived at my offices exactly 10 days later, and I plugged it in.It. Just. Worked.For the money this is a blinding bit of kit. Does everything it says on the tine, and my i5 powered lappy with 8Gb RAM has plenty enough grunt to drive the displays and everything else through a single USB 3 port without any noticeable slowdown.It's not the cheapest out there, but it is far from the most expensive. To be honest, the support is worth more than some of the cheaper units on its own.Thinking about buying one? Just do it, you won't be disappointed...