It is a fact universally acknowledged that a young creative, in possession of a new laptop, must be in want of more USB ports. And a dock provides exactly that.

The need becomes even more pressing when it comes to the latest USB-C ports on the market, Thunderbolt 5. Faced with such an unstoppable torrent of data, it’s an irrepressible human need to hang as many peripherals on it as possible, and a dock enables this to extremes, with video and data ports, card slots and networking.

Anker’s Prime TB5 Docking Station is one of the best I’ve reviewed. It’s our top pick for the best docks for MacBook Pro. It’s faintly ridiculous, really. With 14 separate ports, some of which can be split out further with extra dongles and hubs if you’re really enthusiastic, it’s the ideal companion to a laptop with Thunderbolt 5 on board – and that really means a MacBook Pro right now, as while Thunderbolt 4 is spreading through Windows machines, the faster, newer version has yet to get a real foothold outside of laptops from the Cupertino company. The dock is available on Amazon, giving you a $45 discount, bundled with an extra Thunderbolt cable, which is a bit of a good deal. In the UK, you can get 15% off too.

(Image credit: Future / Ian Evenden)

And it’s really laptops that benefit from a dock like this. While it’s perfectly possible to imagine hooking one up to a Mac Mini or Studio, those desktops are already home to dedicated video outputs in the form of an HDMI port, and come with a bank of USB-C sockets you can merrily plug peripherals into. Modern MacBooks have done away with video connectors, preferring to rely on Thunderbolt, and with a limited number of them on the MacBook chassis some sort of dock has become essential.

Most laptops with Thunderbolt ports can charge through them, and if you use the right dock something wonderful happens – you can connect it to your laptop with a single cable, and it will supply data, video and charging to the computer. This means you can lift it away more easily if you need to leave the office or head into a meeting room, and it’s always fully charged. Not having to undo four different cables leading to external SSDs, monitors, chargers and other dongles is a revelation. Being able to do the process in reverse, and plug everything back in with a single connector, is even better. And not having to accept any slowdown in the speed of your external storage is the icing on the cake.

The Anker Prime TB5 dock is available right now in a bundle with an extra Thunderbolt 5 cable, and that’s a significant saving. The cables are really expensive, and you’ll want an extra one to hook into a USB-C monitor or anything else that requires more data bandwidth than a dusty old lead you found in a drawer can supply. The cables that come with the best external SSDs, such as LaCie’s Rugged TB5 drive, also tend to be very short, so if you want to keep them further away, or tucked out of sight, you’ll need a longer replacement.

Whether you get the bundle or not, the Anker Prime TB5 Docking Station is one of the best docks I’ve tested, and makes a speedy and convenient fixture on any laptop user’s desk.

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