alt Hacker NewsI used to think of myself as one as well but that's changing as of late.
Looking back 15 years or so, I remember the old ThinkPad and Dell Latitude/Precision docking stations functioned reliably for as long as I can remember.
Today I have a variety of USB-C and thunderbolt 3/4 docking stations, all of which have been affected by various issues. The the manufacturers of these things don't care.
The latest casualty is a Pluggable TBT4-UDZ, which randomly decided one day that I should only have one working monitor instead of two. Doesn't matter if I use Windows, Mac or Linux. Meanwhile, the same monitors & cables work fine with my desktop.
I appreciate USB-C as a means to charge my stuff, but from now on, I'm going to try and use other ports and cables for everything else. Every laptop's settings will assume only the main screen will ever be used. I've no time to get used to a nice multi-monitor setup just to have it taken away when the USB-C dock starts acting up.
I've always been a thinkpad fan but their docks were clunky huge uncomfortable things for me.
I had a hp nc2400 that had a very nice little dock where you'd set the laptop on top of two guide poles an then slide the dock connector in from the side. A very compact design.
The thinkpad docks just always used so much space on my desk.