If you're one of the useres who has a lot of devices in the office then you know that it can quickly turn into a messy desktop. With a docking station you get a chance to keep your desk clean and still have lot of options to attach peripherals. 
On the following pages we will show you the strengths and weaknesses of the Toshiba Dynadock docking station.
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Preview
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Specifications
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Design and Features
The Dynadock is an upright standing docking station, which comes with a glossy black finish and rounded edges. The looks are really good and it will leave a good impression on a tidy desktop. At the font there are two USB 3.0 ports as well as a headphone and a microphone connector. A look at the backside reveals that Toshiba decided to provide the Dynadock with quite a few more connectors. In this case there are four additional USB. Two of which support USB 3.0. Furthermore there is a DVI and an HDMI port as well as a gigabit Ethernet connector and more audio ports to connect a 5.1 surround system.
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Setup and user experience
Basically setting up the Dynadock is simple but it takes a little patience. On the included CD you find a manual as well as the drivers needed. It's a pity that there isn't a USB stick in the delivery. If you should be an early adopter and already own an Ultrabook you might first have to copy the contents of the CD to a USB stick because your Ultrabook does not a CD/DVD drive. Anyway, after you've installed all the different drivers as well as the Dynadock Utility you then have to restart your computer. Onced it rebooted you can connect the Dynadock and it get recognized by the system immediately.
We tried to connect a mouse and some USB sticks to the Dynadock and we found no issues with that. Later on we decided to connect a display via the DVI as well as the HDMI port. After plugging the cable it takes a few seconds and the desktop of a notebook gets mirrored. Should your notebook also have a display out then you can use this one to attach even a third display, which might be useful if you do some heavy multitasking.
Conclusion
At CHF 169.- (est. EUR 141.-) the Dynadock isn't exactly cheap. Nevertheless it is quite a practical notebook accessory. It comes in very handy if you want to attach more than one display to your notebook because you tend to do heavy multitasking. Furhtermore there are six additional USB ports of which no less than four are USB 3.0 capable. If you should have black displays on your desk then it will even fit to the surroundings.
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Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch