Kensington Universal Notebook Docking Station with VGA/DVI and Ethernet 4

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review:

Review 6 to 10 of total 20

Works as expected but has rough edges...,
by R. Yung, 2009-10-17

Updated Dec 2009 (updates at the end)

I bought this to replace the similarly featured lenovo dock that wasn't DisplayLink certified. Compared to the Lenovo, a non-displaylink certified product, this product supports monitor rotation and the image quality looks very much like a direct connection to my laptop and not plagued with compression artifacts and discoloration.

Even though this is suppose to be plug-and-play, they should at least provide instructions on what to expect and what to do when things don't occur as expected. When I plugged mine in, nothing happened. I did notice a new cd-rom appear so I tried to install the drivers manually. It ran but gave no indication that it completed. Then I installed the drivers from DisplayLink and it still didn't work. I finally rebooted and it started working but stopped when I rebooted again. It may have been an incompatibility with remnants of the old Lenovo dock drivers and DisplayLink drivers so I tried to uninstall all that stuff, reboot, and start fresh. Now it seems to work better.

One rough edge is that if my laptop turns off my monitor after a period of idleness, I can't get the kensington-connected monitor to come back. Unplugging and replugging the device didn't help and the only solution was to reboot. I sometimes experienced the same issue if I bring my laptop out of hibernation, especially if I had cut power to the kensinton while my laptop was hibernating (no point in wasting power...). I installed Service Pack 3 onto my XP SP2 and hibernation seems to work more reliably, but the monitor power save feature will still cause the monitor to go blank. Very annoying. For now, my only workaround is to set my monitors to never turn off.

I contacted Kensington support regarding the issues with hibernation and power save and the response was unhelpful and not very technically relevant:

KENSINGTON: "We apologize for the inconvenience caused. We would like to inform you that when the computer goes into hibernation mode, all the active applications will be saved in the primary memory which can be restored when the computer wakes up from Hibernation mode.
In this regard, we would like to inform you that the Docking station model # 33926 does not have any internal memory to save the settings/active applications. Hence, when the computer wakes up from Hibernation mode, the external monitor screen will go blank."

I asked for clarification on the matter since DisplayLink themselves says their technology supports all power management modes:

ME: "I believe the problem is with the software/drivers rather than the hardware since unplugging and then replugging the device from usb/power does not bring the monitor back. Lets keep it simple:
Does K33926US support:
1) PC Hibernation?
2) PC Sleep/Standby?
3) Screen saver power save?"

The response was basically a copy-and-paste of the original response:

KENSINGTON: "We would like to inform you that when the computer goes into hibernation mode, all the active applications will be saved in the primary memory which can be restored when the computer wakes up from Hibernation mode.
The computer will not save any information about the external monitor. Due to this the external monitor will not work after hibernation.
We would like to inform you that the Docking station model # 33926 does not have any internal memory to save the settings/active applications."

It's like talking to a recording.

PROs:
+ DisplayLink certified and thus supports all their features
+ Great performance
+ Perfect quality

CONs:
- Installation may not be plug-n-play
- Not compatible with DisplayLink drivers
- May not work with your power management features
- Tech support is very much lacking

UPDATE Nov 2009:
I had continued to try to get Kensington support to fix the problem or look into ways to fix it, but it appears that anything out of the ordinary automatically gets classified as a limitation. I did find a way to prevent the device from not working when coming out from hibernation/sleep and it's to go to device manager and disable Network Adapters/LAN9500 USB 2.0 to Ethernet 10/100 Adapter. If you need the ethernet port, then this workaround is not for you. I told support about this workaround and how the issue may be related to the ethernet device/driver, and the response was basically thank you for trying to troubleshoot the issue but we have no interest in why it doesn't work and are happy to mark this as a limitation and close this case. I'm guessing the device and its drivers are made for Kensinton to resell and they themselves don't have enough technical control to affect development of drivers or troubleshoot the hardware.

UPDATE Dec 2009:
New drivers on the Kensington site that resolves the monitor power-save issue. WONDERFUL! (One more star added) The hibernate/sleep issue due to the ethernet port seems to work better now, but I did have it not work one time so I'm keeping that device disabled (ethernet drivers are still from Feb 2009). Interesting how the 'update notification' feature of the drivers wasn't able to tell me that new drivers were available.

When installing new drivers for this, sometimes an additional phantom display may appear in the display properties. I'm guessing this may happen if you install the drivers when the kensington is plugged in. Fix is to uninstall all kensington / displaylink devices from device manager, disconnect the kensington, uninstall all kensington / displaylink software from control panel, reboot, install the new drivers, and then plug in the kensington.

 

So far so good, Installation issues however.,
by Mike Mc., 2009-09-26

After reading about this product it seemed perfect for my home office since I am 50/50 working on the road and at home. Following the Spartan installation instructions -- the assumption is that your system will install the needed drivers and everything will be plug-and-play -- my experience was not that simple, however. The USB hub functionality was identified OK, however the Kensington Dock software did not install, Ethernet did not work and external monitor did not work. Keep in mind, no software comes with this unit and there were no downloads that I could find on Kensington's website. Checking around a bit, I found a reference to "DisplayLink" technology for this product. I searched on DisplayLink, and found the main site for this technology. The site has downloads for my OS, Vista 64 bit Pro, so I downloaded the software. Drivers installed... then the Kensington software was automatically installed and everything was working fine. So, might have been something specific to my system... but I had to do the legwork myself.

If your monitor and Ethernet do not work with this product, I suggest going here and downloading the drivers for your OS[...]

After fixing that... so far so good. I will post back if I have any issues or other observations.

 

Great Dock... But Not "Universal.",
by J. Wilmoth, 2010-07-01

OBSERVATIONS
Kensington makes a great product (K33926US), but unfortunately, "Universal" isn't what it is. I purchased three docks and three Toshiba laptops, one with an Intel processor, and two with AMD Athlon II Dual-Core chips and ATI Radeon 4100s. Of the three, only the Intel laptop worked correctly with the Kensington. When plugged in, both AMD laptops would install, but had blocky screen artifacts when motion occurred on the display (scrolling, opening the Windows 7 Start Menu). The artifacting was not on the second display, hooked up through the Kensington, but on the laptop's display! With the Kensington drivers (and specifically the "Displaylink" portion of the drivers) the block artifacts were there; without, they were gone.

I tried multiple drivers, different install orders, and talked to Kensington tech support twice. I also tried the displaylink drivers that Displaylink has posted on their website. I was never able to fix the artifacts, and returned two of the three docks. I am almost certain the issue lies with the Displaylink drivers and the AMD chip, because I installed the Kensington without graphics support, and experienced no problems.

CONS
- Does not fully replace a manufacturer specific dock (no AC laptop charging) - Amazon literature states this);
- Not "Universal", does not play well with some hardware combinations;
- Kensington tech support is responsive and helpful, if not always able to solve the problem;

PROS
+ Installs quickly and easily;
+ Secondary display crisp and without lag issues (for everyday work, at least);
+ Combines all laptop connections to a single USB connection, useful for mobile laptop users;

VERDICT
The Kensington K33926US is a good buy if your laptop doesn't have a manufacturer specific dock option, but beware of a Displaylink driver/AMD hardware conflict.

 

Handy Docking Station,
by Debbie Fowler, 2010-08-25

The Kensington Universal docking station is an excellent tool for docking with the exception that there is no on/off switch so user needs to open the lap top every time to turn it on if you are using an external monitor only and intend to keep it closed. Otherwise it was shipped quickly and is exactly as described. It took less than 5 minutes to set it up and accepted both my home Acer laptop and my work HP Elitebook. I did have to shut down and re-start both after connecting the USB to each. I also had an issue with the internet connection, but after running the set up program for it, all was fine. This is a great time-saver for anyone who has to switch out lap-tops or even likes to travel with their lap-top and has to constantly disconnect all the peripherals all the time.

 

is .. OK,.. but I dont know,.. I mean,. you know..,
by James Silcharde, 2010-02-24

Stay away from it If you are an idiot, it works after some troubleshooting.

I used my Viliv S5 as my main computer for about 6 months and I could NOT have done so without this thing, now I got a brand new laptop and I'm selling this dock for $80 :).

Does what it says, the viliv S5 has only one USB, a single USB wire would run from the s5 (or anything) to the dock and the dock will provide, 5 powered USB ports, lan, sound/mic and video good enough to drive a 22" samsung lcd monitor at 1080p. (NO HD VIDEO! just that high resolution for your workspace)

I got it to work with XP/VISTA/7 you will need to play with it for a few minutes to get to work, but if you are lazy and inpatient or just a moron you are not going to get it, ask yourself this "do I get easily frustrated with computers ?" if your answer is one/all of the following; 'Yes', 'sometimes', 'define computers', 'nobody knows technology better than me' then sail away.