It's tough for laptop docking stations to stand out—most of them are simply boxes that add extra ports to your laptop—but Satechi's Dual Dock Stand breaks the mold. It sits neatly under your laptop and elevates it slightly and at an angle for better ergonomics. A collection of ports on the rear—including several USB ports and three monitor outputs—is conveniently placed so your desktop setup can stay connected, while cables are tucked out of the way. A hardware switch on the back lets you turn the dock on or off, and a small strip of rubber on top ensures the laptop doesn't slide off.
It has an NVMe solid state drive slot at the bottom, too. While no SSD is included, you can plug in your own (something like this will work) to give your dock storage to offload files from your laptop. I found this particularly handy for storing things like digital assets or applications I want when I'm parked at a desk, but don't need to bring with me on the go. For example, when I plug my gaming laptop into a desk-based setup, I can access a larger library of games that are stored on the dock's SSD.
The dock connects to your laptop via two USB-C plugs that run through a small plastic sleeve to line them up for popular laptops like the MacBook Air. Alternatively, you can pull the sleeve back to separate the plugs to fit other laptops with USB-C ports that are more spaced out. Most of the ports on the docking station can be run using just one of these cables, but you'll need both to use the two 4K HDMI ports on the rear. Those two USB-C ports should be on the same side of the laptop since the cables aren't long enough to reach around the left and right sides of the laptop. Check your device's port arrangement before grabbing this one.
The only downside? It doesn't come with a power supply like most of our other picks. However, the USB-C PD port on the rear supports up to 75-watt input, which it can pass onto your laptop.
Connects via two USB-C cables.