Sonnet Echo 13 Triple 4K dock review: Thoughtful performance

Greatest Costs Right now: Sonnet Echo 13 Triple 4K Show Dock

$239.99

Sonnet’s Echo 13 Triple 4K Show Dock follows the intriguing path different DisplayLink docks have blazed: The dock’s built-in compression means you may join to a few 4K shows, with out penalty. And sure, it really works as marketed, although with one challenge that holds it again.

Sonnet’s Echo 13 falls beneath the class of a DisplayLink dock, which makes use of {hardware} video compression to approximate the efficiency of a Thunderbolt dock — we embrace these in our checklist of the perfect Thunderbolt docks. Each function laptop computer docking stations, increasing your laptop computer’s I/O capabilities. On this case, this dock’s promoting level is its capability to connect with three 4K shows, which is does admirably.

Sonnet does a fully excellent job with its documentation. Organising a Thunderbolt dock is not any massive deal; plug all the pieces in and all of it simply works. DisplayLink docks require a software program driver to allow the compression software program to do its work, nonetheless, and never all dock producers actually clarify this. Sonnet bends over backwards to not solely clarify this to you in its documentation, but in addition offers a devoted URL to obtain the motive force and bodily blocks the DisplayLink ports with a sticker that explains the way you’ll must obtain the drivers for these ports to perform, with a QR code that hyperlinks to extra info. Effectively performed!

As for the ports — effectively, there’s a ton of them, and all the pieces is generally well-labeled. On the entrance, two LEDs clearly point out that the dock is powered on and related, with separate mic and headphone jacks, a UHS-II (320Mbps) SDXC card slot, and a 10Gbit USB-C port that’s labeled for 20W watts of charging energy. Notice that there’s solely the one USB-C port, and also you’ll want an adapter if you wish to use the SD slot with a microSD card.

A Kensington Lock slot has been added to the aspect, subsequent to small grilles for passive cooling. I’ve observed some DisplayLink docks warmth up, particularly whereas taking part in video games, however Sonnet’s dock stayed remarkably cool.

Mark Hachman / IDG

On the rear, the facility connection sits alongside the upstream USB-C port, additionally clearly labeled to supply 100W of charging energy. Then there are the three pairs of show ports: first the “direct” HDMI and DisplayPort connections, then the 2 pairs of DisplayLink ports — once more, each HDMI and DisplayPort. There’s a gigabit Ethernet port as effectively. Lastly, there are 4 USB-A (5Gbps) ports — however they’re rated at 7.5W, too, which is unusually excessive. Primarily, this dock skimps a bit on USB-C connections, however the USB-A ports ship higher-bandwidth and extra energy than some docks do.

Below testing, although, I discovered that the entrance USB-C port places out slightly below 15W, and that the USB-A ports generate about 2.5W. The USB-C energy output is superb, and it’s sufficient to fast-charge a cellphone. The USB-A port output is a bit of disappointing. I additionally confirmed that the dock places out about 91W beneath load, which is near the rated 100W output.

From my expertise, DisplayLink docks are reliably secure, whereas some Thunderbolt docks will often glitch and disconnect, then reconnect, any connected shows. I used to be disillusioned to search out that Sonnet’s dock was the primary DisplayLink dock that dropped a connection, and comparatively quickly after I booted up my PC to start out my workday.

I think that’s not on account of DisplayLink. As famous above, one of many three show connections is a “direct” HDMI/DisplayPort hyperlink, and the others use the DisplayPort compression. As a result of Home windows 11 reconfigures the show output after a show is added or eliminated, I can’t ensure that that is the case. However after I swapped the show cable from the “direct” port to one of many DisplayLink connections, I observed no different issues.

Mark Hachman / IDG

I additionally ran the Echo 13 with three 4K show connected, and that labored simply positive. (That meant that I did have one show related to the direct connection, and I didn’t discover any points. The third show did attempt to configure itself as a 4K, 30Hz show with out my guide adjustment, nonetheless.)

How does the Sonnet Echo 13 Triple 4K Show Dock carry out?

The Sonnet Echo 13 Triple 4K Show Dock’s efficiency was typically wonderful. Utilizing PCMark’s storage benchmark on an exterior SSD, the dock transferred 144.5MB/s, the quickest I’ve seen, for a rating of 936. A 4K, 60Hz YouTube video performed again at an upscaled 1440p, which is fairly commonplace, with out dropping any frames. After I carried out the PCMark check whereas streaming within the background, the feed dropped 23 frames out of 37,431 — virtually negligible. I additionally copied a check folder of video and different information from the desktop over the Echo 13’s bus to the SSD, with and with out streaming. Efficiency dropped from 1 minute to 1 minute 13 seconds whereas doing so, which I doubt you’d discover.

The one black mark: audio. Routing the audio from the YouTube video over the dock’s headphone jack was spotty at finest and considerably nonexistent more often than not. Routing the audio again over the laptop computer’s inner audio system was positive. The dock does include a two-year guarantee.

Sonnet’s value is perhaps a tad excessive for a DisplayLink dock, however in any other case the array of options it gives is superb. Whereas I doubt that too many individuals immediately join their headphones to the dock reasonably than a laptop computer, which ought to(?) be in entrance of them, it nonetheless mars an in any other case stable productiveness expertise. I feel that the opposite advantages outweigh that black mark, however I’d like that mounted earlier than I can award this dock an Editor’s Selection.