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March 25, 2008

accessories

Got a lot of peripherals? Dock your MacBook with a BookEndz docking station

Posted Mar. 25, ’08, 6:00 PM PT by David Dahlquist
Category | Hardware » Accessories

bookendz.jpgIf you’re like me and use your MacBook as your primary computer, complete with a constant arse-load of peripherals attached to it, then it makes sense to use a dock. A dock provides you with one place to keep your desktop peripherals plugged in, so you don’t need to do the plug-unplug shuffle with 5 different peripherals each time you want to mozy your MacBook down to the coffee shop. It also relieves your desk of the clutter that comes with keeping 4 or 5 peripherals separately attached to your laptop.

And so, BookEndz inc., has stepped up and released a docking station for the 13” MacBook, which, according to the MacNN review, is not half bad. It’s custom-fitted for the MacBook, and offers five USB ports, a full size VGA and DVI port, and a special gap that allows room for the MagSafe adaptor. The downside: there is only one FireWire port, so you won’t gain anything on that end.

It will run you $159, so if you have the cash, and a desire to declutter and simplify the peripheral aspects of your life, check this bad boy out.


7 Comments

wesg Author Profile Page said:

Sounds like an interesting solution. Currently I use a 4 port USB and FireWire Time Machine drive, and both have to be plugged in each time I sit down at my desk.

March 25, 2008 6:55 PM
Anonymous said:

I want one but am not sure if their audio connection is optical or not. I've written the manufacturer for clarification.

March 25, 2008 8:34 PM
David Dahlquist said:

Great! Please let us know when you hear back from them, as I'm curious about this myself.

March 25, 2008 9:25 PM
Dan Frakes Author Profile Page said:

One thing to note about this is that you have to *shut down* your computer each time you want to connect or disconnect it.

March 26, 2008 12:13 AM
Kelmon said:

This is one aspect of the Mac platform that I don't like. For all the jokes made at the expense of Dell, and a lot of them are on-the-button, I am jealous of my colleagues who can plug their Latitudes into a real docking station while I need to manually connect cables to my MacBook Pro when I get to work. The solution that BookEndz produces, while a solution, is a fudge and one that I'm not interested in. It may be too much to hope, but perhaps Apple will finally see docking stations as something useful and build-in at least a proper connector to their laptops so that someone can make a proper solution.

March 26, 2008 12:49 AM
wesg Author Profile Page said:

@Kelmon
Agreed, actually. Having a docking station would be super convenient, and I would definitely consider it.

March 26, 2008 8:47 AM
Dave-O said:

@Dan, in the real world you have to shut Windows down too. Try as I might, hibernate and sleep simply don't provide a reliable dock/undock experience. If you can't trust that the system will wake up and have to save everything anyway, you might as well shut down.

@Kelmon, The MBA is a better glimpse of the future than this dock. Add some Wireless USB to it and there's nothing to connect but the monitor.

March 26, 2008 1:57 PM

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