Portable Docking Station Review

I'm using a Portable Docking Station in my desk setup as it acts as I riser for my Acer C720 Chromebook meaning that I can angle the screen at just the right hight to use it as a desktop system while I'm at home.

The Docking Station has three fans on the under side of the riser portion giving extra cooling, which is a little redundant on the Acer as it's a fan-less system that doesn't get hot thanks to the intel Haswell CPU that it uses.

The base part to the Docking Station also includes a 4 Port Bus powered USB Hub, I've only got one of the four USB Ports on the Docking Station in permanent use for the Transmitter for my Wireless Keyboard and Mouse that I reviewed yesterday, as it doesn't seem to handle Sound output to my Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 Headset properly as it only provides a very low Sound output making it very hard to hear anything.

While not a perfect solution as it takes up the valuable USB 3.0 port on my Chromebook this is a perfect solution for using a Laptop as a desktop. I might have to try my Creative Soundblaster  USB Sound Card in one of the Ports on the Docking Station to see if it makes an acceptable work around for when I need to use a USB 3.0 device at the same time as needing to use Headphones.

While the built in Speakers of the Acer Chromebook are more than acceptable for outputting sound, the location of my setup makes it inconvenient to use them unless I'm doing something where I want to listen to music without being tethered to my desk.

With a Monitor on a desk mount the Portable Docking Station makes the ideal way to convert a Laptop into a Desktop computer, even without a Monitor it makes an ideal way to convert a Laptop to a Desktop Computer on a budget.

For a link to the Portable Docking Station I'm using see my Desk setup November 2014  Article.

Roland