The Plugable USB-C Stand Dock doesn’t cease at merely holding up your iPad so you possibly can see the show, it’s additionally an 8-port hub that means that you can join an exterior display and different equipment to your pill.
I put the transportable and inexpensive stand/hub to the check in my dwelling workplace. Right here’s how is stood as much as the problem.
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Plugable USB-C Stand Dock assessment
As nice as an iPad feels in your palms, generally you gotta go palms free. Whether or not you’re merely checking a recipe when you cook dinner, or have gone entire hog and turned your pill right into a desktop laptop with keyboard and mouse, iPad can deal with it. However you want a superb stand.
And when you’re utilizing your iPad to its full extent, you in all probability want a hub that permits you to hook up with an HDMI monitor, keyboard/mouse, flash drives and SD playing cards.
With the Plugable USB-C Stand Dock, you get each iPad equipment in a single. That’s much less muddle… and fewer cash out of your pockets.
Moveable folding iPad stand
Picture: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
The very first thing you see while you have a look at the stand is an aluminum plate that curves up alongside its backside edge to carry a pill. The “shelf” is padded to guard the pc from scratches, and is large sufficient to be appropriate with a wide range of fashions, not solely iPad.
The assist arm of the Plugable USB-C Stand Dock has a double hinge design so it may be adjusted in two methods. You’ll be able to tilt your pill so the display and the front-facing digicam level towards your face. However think about, the pc is held in place by gravity, so that you’ll want the system leaning again to maintain your iPad from tumbling out of the stand.
The second hinge means that you can alter the peak of your laptop. The underside fringe of your pill might be up about 2 inches, or all the best way down till it touches the bottom.
The hinges are tight sufficient that the stand helps my 12.9-inch iPad Professional. There’s no query of it collapsing below the burden.
However you possibly can fold the Plugable USB-C Stand Dock till it’s about 1.3 inches thick, 4.0 in. large and seven.75 in. lengthy — sufficiently small to suit simply in a backpack. It weighs only one.3 kilos.
The bottom can be wrapped in aluminum, and it’s the place you’ll discover the eight ports.
8 helpful ports
Picture: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
iPads have lengthy supported a variety of exterior ports while not having extra software program drivers, including to the pill’s usefulness. Even higher, the brand new iPadOS 16 permits high-end fashions with M-series processors to make full use of exterior shows. It’s reached the purpose the place an iPad generally is a light-duty desktop.
The ports constructed into the Plugable USB-C Stand Dock make that iPad desktop much more helpful. An influence/information cable runs from the accent to the pill, giving entry to all of the ports.
That features an HDMI port that helps as much as 4K video at 30Hz. I examined it with my 27-inch, 4K display from Innocn and I can undoubtedly inform that the show is 30Hz, not the same old 60Hz. The exterior display seems superb, however inferior to it normally does.
The 2 USB-A ports help you plug in a keyboard and mouse. I examined every sort of accent to make sure, and there have been no issues.
These ports are additionally helpful for flash drives, however remember that they assist the older USB 3.0 customary, which suggests they high out at 5 Gbps. In my real-world testing, transferring from drive to iPad over one in every of these ports goes rapidly — I can transfer a 1GB check file in 5-8 seconds. When going the opposite course, switch speeds rely closely on the standard of the flash drive. With a top-quality drive, I can transfer a 1GB file in below 5 secs. With an inexpensive thumbdrive, the identical switch took about 2 minutes.
Plugable additionally inbuilt a pair of SD and microSD card readers. These are very helpful if in case you have a drone or different digicam that makes use of these small reminiscence playing cards. Shifting a 1GB check file off a card and onto my iPad by way of this reader took 8 secs. However transfers to the cardboard are slower, taking 75 secs. to repeat the identical check file. Each card readers can be found on the identical time so you possibly can simply transfer recordsdata between them.
There’s additionally an audio jack within the stand/hub. Plug a pair of audio system or perhaps a headphones into the Plugable USB-C Stand Dock and also you’re able to hearken to music when you work.
The record wraps up with a USB-C port wanted to attach the hub to your laptop utilizing the 18-inch cable that comes with the hub. There’s a second USB-C port for connecting the accent to an influence supply. This may deal with as much as 100W — greater than sufficient for any iPad.
All these ports are supported by any iPad with USB-C, which is sort of each mannequin in Apple’s present product lineup. Full external-display performance requires an iPad Professional or iPad Air with M-series processor.
Plugable USB-C Stand Dock last ideas
Picture: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Don’t fall into the lure pondering that the one “actual” laptop is a Mac. Any laptop in a position to get the job achieved is an actual laptop. That may be an iPad in a stand, particularly when its one like Plugable’s with extra ports.
That stated, the HDMI and USB-A ports on this stand/dock are usually not high of the road, which I’d be extra crucial about if the value for this accent was greater. As it’s, I can suggest the product for productiveness but it surely’s not effectively suited to leisure.
★★★☆☆
Pricing
The Plugable USB-C Stand Dock prices $69, which wouldn’t be too dangerous a worth if it had been solely a stand with no hub. As it’s the worth is respectable. Plugable sells product via Amazon so head there to make a purchase order.
Purchase from: Amazon
If you wish to store round, the Satechi Aluminum Stand & Hub for iPad Professional is a powerful competitor. It’s extra transportable however has one much less USB-A port and a better worth. Learn my assessment of this accent.
Satechi supplied Cult of Mac with a assessment unit for this text. See our opinions coverage, and take a look at different in-depth opinions of Apple-related objects.
