Kensington Universal Notebook Docking Station with VGA/DVI and Ethernet 4 Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A great docking station January 29, 2010
Does exactly what I needed it to do. All my add-ons work and makes my docked laptop work perfectly. I recommend this item.

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible December 18, 2009
I bought this dock to use with my new Dell Studio 1555. I planned to take advantage of display link technology and be able to run a 2nd monitor through the dock, as well as stream strip my other USB devices to just one connection. Since reviews of this dock were mixed, I was a little wary of how it would function but figured it was worth a shot. For reference, I am running Windows 7 professional 64-bit on a dual core p8700 computer beside 4gb of ram.

Unfortunately, this dock just doesn't cut it. It immediately recognized all of my USB devices and installed drivers for them, and then launched the displaylink installer which crashed half way through. I restarted the installer manually, and this time installation completed successfully. However the minor monitor never turned on. I rebooted, and this time the monitor did come on, but only at 1024x768 resolution. The default for my monitor is 1920x1080 so that was obviously not satisfactory. I did quite a lot of messing around with both Catalyst Control Center (for my AMD graphics card) as well as near Window's built in display manager, but could never get the resolution correct no matter what I tried. I went to Kensington's web-page hoping to find some solutions, but their page has nothing at all useful for this dock. They did own a newer driver package (Nov. 2009), so I downloaded that hoping it would fix the resolution problem. After installing it and rebooting, the secondary monitor stopped working altogether!

I tried a variety of things to trouble shoot the non-working 2nd monitor, but nothing fixed the problem. I went to the displaylink webpage hoping they had support or a potential fix, but again, nothing. I then tried plugging the monitor directly into my computer using an HDMI cable and was competent to get it to display immediately at full resolution. The Kensington dock couldn't get it a signal at all, even after multiple restarts of both my computer and the dock (in different orders hoping that would make a difference--it didn't).

Long story short, this dock does support all the USB devices I needed to connect, but so does my much cheaper powered 8-way USB hub. The main reason I needed this was to streamline the number of things I need to plug into my computer when I want to use it at my work station. I've just gone back to the hub, knowing that I'll also need to plug in an HDMI cable and Ethernet cable, which really isn't that big of a deal since I cable-banded them together so they're all ready to move about when I sit down.

I wasted about 6 hours of my life trying to get this dock to work. Your mileage may vary with different hardware/OS but I was seriously not impressed with this device nor the poorly laid out (and slow I might add) webpages of Kensington and Displaylink. I'm used to robust support sites from the likes of Asus, Crucial, etc., near real information and forums for solving problems. Kensington and Displaylink support pages are laughable, so if you do have an issue outside their 8 arbitrary FAQs, good luck getting your problem fixed.

I would not waste your money on this dock unless you are willing to spend a lot of time to MAYBE get it to work correctly. Right now it doesn't appear that near are any really good docks out there, so I'll probably just skip using one altogether until something much improved comes out (along the lines of the Harmony remote which actually DOES what it is supposed to and makes your life simpler!).

1/5 Stars. An overpriced USB hub.

5.0 out of 5 stars Works with Windows 7 (32 / 64bit) December 2, 2009
Just received the dock so i can share my big screen Sony KDL-52Z5100 and 24Inch monitor next to the Dell Lat E6500 and HP HDX-16t. the dock works right of the bat after plugging in usb to laptop within 30 seconds it notified ithe display driver was being installed but it failed because Win 7 was not supported but and error message to visit [...] for most up-to-date driver (new driver dated Nov 25 2009) installed the driver rebooted laptop and it works. connected the dock to Tv using pc generic 15 ft cable (from [...]) and i can have extended display of any combination. to test the any lag in video display thru dock i played Two & Half men from cbs.com in HD works fine on the 52 inch tv. tho i think the color could be better may be the pc link be problem but the point is regular 24 inch monitor showed nothing different for regular office work and web surfing the color difference should not matter. overall good product and now i can dock dell latitude, HP Hdx and Dell Studio to same monitor

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Idea but Fails in Driver Implementation April 9, 2010
I have had this device for 8 months presently, and I can't say I am any happier with it now, than I was when I got it. I got it because it was the only option for a docking stations for my Dell XPS 16 laptop that Dell would volunteer me. Unfortunately the drivers are so buggy that my Windows 7 machine is always crashing when it is connected to it. Or when I disconnect from it.

IF they got the drivers right, then it would be a reasonably good piece of hardware, considering what it has to do (pump screen data, Internet notes, USB data from external hard drives, and sound all through one USB 2.0 port). I have updated the drivers 3 times since i have had and the results have been up and down. At first the logo quality was very problematic, but that was fixed. But it continues to cause Desktop Windows Manager to crash in Windows, as well as locking up the machine on sleep or hibernate - corrupting my files.

The problem is that the display drivers are written by DisplayLink, and the sound drivers by someone else, and who know when all the bugs will be worked out. For now (April-2010) I would say, stay well away. Spend your money elsewhere (and not on a product with DisplayLink technology, since it has a lot of bugs).

FYI, I am using 64bit Windows 7.

Hope that helps.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Dock... But Not "Universal." July 1, 2010
OBSERVATIONS
Kensington makes a great product (K33926US), but miserably, "Universal" isn't what it is. I purchased three docks and three Toshiba laptops, one with an Intel processor, and two with AMD Athlon II Dual-Core chips and ATI Radeon 4100s. Of the three, only the Intel laptop worked correctly with the Kensington. When plugged in, both AMD laptops would install, but had blocky screen artifacts when motion occurred on the display (scrolling, opening the Windows 7 Start Menu). The artifacting be not on the second display, hooked up through the Kensington, but on the laptop's display! With the Kensington drivers (and specifically the "Displaylink" portion of the drivers) the block artifacts were there; without, they were gone.

I tried multiple drivers, different install orders, and talked to Kensington tech support twice. I also tried the displaylink drivers that Displaylink has posted on their website. I was never able to fix the artifacts, and returned two of the three docks. I am almost spot on the issue lies with the Displaylink drivers and the AMD chip, because I installed the Kensington without graphics support, and experienced no problems.

CONS
- Does not fully replace a manufacturer specific dock (no AC laptop charging) - Amazon literature states this);
- Not "Universal", does not play well with some hardware combinations;
- Kensington tech support is responsive and helpful, if not always able to solve the problem;

PROS
+ Installs like a shot and easily;
+ Secondary display crisp and without lag issues (for everyday work, at least);
+ Combines all laptop connections to a single USB connection, useful for mobile laptop users;

VERDICT
The Kensington K33926US is a good buy if your laptop doesn't have a manufacturer specific dock picking, but beware of a Displaylink driver/AMD hardware conflict.

3.0 out of 5 stars Kensington Universal Docking Station does what it needs to November 8, 2009
I purchased the docking station to allow me to use my tiny Acer Aspire One netbook (also purchased at Amazon) to function as a desktop. As one might expect anything with "universal" in its title is going to be somewhat quirky. But it works flawlessly and effortlessly with my Canon PIXMA 490 printer and Logitech Cordless Desktop S520 keyboard and mouse. These are truly plug-and-play. Getting my old VGA monitor to work as a mirror to the netbook involved two emails that did not resolve the issue and one phone call to Kensington technical support, which did resolve the issue within a situation of seconds. The documentation does not provide more than simple set-up instructions. The device sets itself up once plugged into the netbook for the first time, but it takes a bit of trial and error tweaking to get it to work properly. I am very happy with the purchase. I would give it a higher rating except for the balkiness of the external monitor. If one allows the netbook to go to sleep, one must unplug the device from both the netbook and the power cord, reboot and reconnect power and the USB nouns to the laptop. If you do all that, the external monitor is back on line. There are work-arounds for this, but it is a pain. Bottom line is that the device works as advertised and does allow you to use a tiny (but powerful) netbook without any need for a desktop. Clearly, this set-up is for business only, not gaming. I would clearly recommend this to anyone with the patience to tweak it to perfection. Full disclosurw: my other computers are MACs. The Kensington docking station has a DVI connector as well, which I have not tried. I suspect that the device could do a lot more than I have tried. I still have two unused USB ports and a port for headphones and a microphone. BTW, I would present Kensington support somewhere between four and five stars.

4.0 out of 5 stars Works as expected but has rough edges... October 17, 2009
Updated Nov 2010 (updates at the end)

I bought this to replace the similarly featured lenovo dock that wasn't DisplayLink certified. Compared to the Lenovo, a non-displaylink certified product, this product supports monitor rotation and the image quality looks very much like a direct connection to my laptop and not plagued with compression artifacts and discoloration.

Even though this is suppose to be plug-and-play, they should at least provide instructions on what to expect and what to do when things don't crop up as expected. When I plugged mine in, nothing happened. I did notice a new cd-rom appear so I tried to install the drivers manually. It ran but gave no indication that it completed. Then I installed the drivers from DisplayLink and it still didn't work. I finally rebooted and it started working but stopped when I rebooted again. It may have been an incompatibility next to remnants of the old Lenovo dock drivers and DisplayLink drivers so I tried to uninstall all that stuff, reboot, and start fresh. Now it seems to work better.

One rough edge is that if my laptop turns off my monitor after a period of idleness, I can't get the kensington-connected monitor to come back. Unplugging and replugging the device didn't serve and the only solution was to reboot. I sometimes experienced the same issue if I bring my laptop out of hibernation, especially if I had cut power to the kensinton while my laptop was hibernating (no point in wasting power...). I installed Service Pack 3 onto my XP SP2 and hibernation seems to work more reliably, but the monitor power save factor will still cause the monitor to go blank. Very annoying. For now, my only workaround is to set my monitors to never turn off.

I contacted Kensington support regarding the issues with hibernation and power save and the response was vicious and not very technically relevant:

KENSINGTON: "We apologize for the inconvenience caused. We would like to inform you that when the computer goes into hibernation mode, all the active applications will be saved in the primary memory which can be restored when the computer wakes up from Hibernation mode.
In this good opinion, we would like to inform you that the Docking station model # 33926 does not have any internal memory to save the settings/active applications. Hence, when the computer wakes up from Hibernation mode, the external monitor screen will go blank."

I asked for clarification on the matter since DisplayLink themselves says their technology supports all power control modes:

ME: "I believe the problem is with the software/drivers rather than the hardware since unplugging and then replugging the device from usb/power does not bring the monitor back. Lets keep it simple:
Does K33926US support:
1) PC Hibernation?
2) PC Sleep/Standby?
3) Screen saver power save?"

The response was basically a copy-and-paste of the productive response:

KENSINGTON: "We would like to inform you that when the computer goes into hibernation mode, all the active applications will be saved in the primary memory which can be restored when the computer wakes up from Hibernation mode.
The computer will not save any information about the external monitor. Due to this the external monitor will not work after hibernation.
We would approaching to inform you that the Docking station model # 33926 does not have any internal memory to save the settings/active applications."

It's like talking to a recording.

PROs:
+ DisplayLink certified and thus supports all their features
+ Great performance
+ Perfect quality

CONs:
- Installation may not be plug-n-play
- Not compatible with DisplayLink drivers
- May not work beside your power management features
- Tech support is very much lacking

UPDATE Nov 2009:
I had continued to try to get Kensington support to fix the problem or look into ways to fix it, but it appears that anything out of the ordinary automatically gets classified as a limitation. I did find a way to prevent the device from out of order when coming out from hibernation/sleep and it's to go to device manager and disable Network Adapters/LAN9500 USB 2.0 to Ethernet 10/100 Adapter. If you need the ethernet port, then this workaround is not for you. I told support about this workaround and how the issue may be related to the ethernet device/driver, and the response was basically thank you for trying to troubleshoot the issue but we have no interest in why it doesn't work and are thankful to mark this as a limitation and close this case. I'm guessing the device and its drivers are made for Kensinton to resell and they themselves don't have enough technical control to affect development of drivers or troubleshoot the hardware.

UPDATE Dec 2009:
New drivers on the Kensington site that resolves the monitor power-save issue. WONDERFUL! (One more star added) The hibernate/sleep issue due to the ethernet port seems to work better now, but I did hold it not work one time so I'm keeping that device disabled (ethernet drivers are still from Feb 2009). Interesting how the 'update notification' feature of the drivers wasn't able to tell me that new drivers were available.

When installing new drivers for this, sometimes an additional phantom display may appear in the display properties. I'm guessing this may happen if you install the drivers when the kensington is plugged within. Fix is to uninstall all kensington / displaylink devices from device manager, disconnect the kensington, uninstall all kensington / displaylink software from control panel, reboot, install the new drivers, and then plug in the kensington.

UPDATE Nov 2010:
Still working great (still not using the included ethernet). The latest Kensington driver is 5.2 while DisplayLink is at 5.5. According to DisplayLink, you should be able to install the latest over it but that wasn't the armour for me. I installed 5.5 over the Kensington drivers, rebooted, prompted for another reboot, and the result that the display was blank and no icon in the tray to indicate that it even is working (all non-video functions are still working). I installed the kensington drivers again and so now both displaylink and kensington drivers are installed. I go into device manager, find the DisplayLink Mirror Adapter, and manually update the driver to what is here: C:\Program Files\DisplayLink Core Software\MirrorDriver\. I reboot and it now works and DisplayLink support confirms that I have the latest revision installed. Maybe the manual update of the mirror driver is not necessary, but I guess I'll find out next time.

3.0 out of 5 stars Trouble with Install October 13, 2009
Received this product today, and like Mike - I am having a lot of trouble with this install. So much for the easy plug and play. It would be nice if this product come with software to ease the install, but it does not. Ethernet and monitor does not work and I am trying to find additional drivers,etc to install. Not sure if I will keep this product as I dont have a lot of time to be a tech.

Any tips on where to go to find product downloads? Kensington website is not much help.

4.0 out of 5 stars So far so accurate, Installation issues however. September 25, 2009
After reading about this product it seemed perfect for my home office since I am 50/50 working on the road and at home. Following the Spartan installation instructions -- the assumption is that your system will install the needed drivers and everything will be plug-and-play -- my experience was not that simple, however. The USB hub functionality was identified OK, however the Kensington Dock software did not install, Ethernet did not work and external monitor did not work. Keep in mind, no software comes with this element and there were no downloads that I could find on Kensington's website. Checking around a bit, I found a reference to "DisplayLink" technology for this product. I searched on DisplayLink, and found the main site for this technology. The site has downloads for my OS, Vista 64 bit Pro, so I downloaded the software. Drivers installed... then the Kensington software was automatically installed and everything was working fine. So, might enjoy been something specific to my system... but I had to do the legwork myself.

If your monitor and Ethernet do not work with this product, I suggest going here and downloading the drivers for your OS[...]

After fixing that... so far so good. I will post back if I have any issues or other observations.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Choice September 10, 2009
Purchased yesterday. Arrived today. Followed the very simple instructions and loaded without problem on the new vista 64 bit system. Literally plug and play. Works intensely well with dual monitors. I like the monitor swith that lets me change where the desktop resides. Excellent product. Highly recommend.



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