One benefit of a gaming PC over a gaming laptop? All those extra ports that let you connect all kinds of peripherals and devices. Even the best gaming laptops fall short in this area, which is a shame because all those ports can be useful for gaming and streaming.
And if your gaming laptop doubles as a workstation? Those extra ports can boost productivity and make your life easier.
That’s where a docking station comes into play. A docking station is a small device with lots of extra ports—as soon as you plug your laptop into the docking station, anything connected to the docking station becomes available to the laptop you just plugged in, as if those peripherals were connected to the laptop itself.
Here are eight reasons why you need a docking station for your laptop and the various ways your workstation can benefit.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
As modern laptops have grown thinner and lighter, they’ve had to sacrifice some of the connectivity of their older, chunkier siblings. It isn’t uncommon for portable laptops to have a single pair of USB-C ports.
Docking stations often include a range of USB-A and USB-C ports for data transfers and charging, and the modern ones even support cutting-edge connections like USB4 and Thunderbolt 3 and 4.
They may also come with video outputs like HDMI and DisplayPort, and some have DisplayLink compression. Some docks even have Ethernet connectivity, SD card readers, and audio jacks (a much-missed feature on some modern laptop designs).
Gaming and streaming can require lots of additional accessories, from microphones to webcams to stream deck button boxes. Is your laptop lacking in ports? A docking station can help.
You probably don’t need a docking station with 10+ ports of all different types. Pick one that has the connections you need. It’s that simple!
Your laptop may not have a video output—and even if it does, it probably only has one. Is it even the right type? Maybe you have an external monitor that doesn’t fit your laptop.
A docking station makes your laptop monitor situation far more flexible. With the right ports, you could hook up one or two (or more!) monitors to your laptop through the dock, and you may be able to choose between HDMI, DisplayPort, etc.
Connecting multiple monitors can be a massive boon for laptop productivity, so a docking station could be a serious game changer for your work output. Plus, you may also benefit from the extra ports that can hook up printers, external drives, and other accessories.
The Ethernet port is, unfortunately, one of the largest ports. That’s why it’s often one of the first to go in slim laptop designs.
The good news is, many docking stations come with a Gigabit Ethernet port (or, in some cases, even faster). As long as your laptop can support that sort of bandwidth, then you can add faster, more stable networking to your laptop with a docking station that has an Ethernet port.
Modern Wi-Fi is extremely fast, but it needs the right hardware to take full advantage of it. Not only that, Wi-Fi can face congestion issues in busy areas and be vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
A docking station with an Ethernet port can increase network security, increase speeds, and reduce Wi-Fi congestion. The lower latency and improved connection stability can also be good for gaming.
BYOD (or bring your own device) is a useful system for remote workers who occasionally need to come in for work. BYOD allows you to use your own personal device for work in the office.
But bringing your own hardware to work can be a hassle: logging into different Wi-Fi networks, reconnecting to printers, hooking up monitors and peripherals, etc.
With a docking station, all of that is eliminated. The docking station can stay at the office and remain connected to everything, and it’ll all be ready as soon as you plug in your BYOD device.
Instead of plugging and unplugging everything whenever you head in or head out, you can just plug your laptop into the docking station and start working straight way, connected to everything you need.
This also applies to working between different offices or departments! Docking stations help your laptop integrate with an environment quicker and more simply than without.
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How often do you charge your phone, camera, or earbuds using your laptop? It can be really convenient, but it also means that you’re sacrificing your laptop’s own precious battery life.
Plus, if your laptop itself is plugged in to keep itself charged, then your already-limited selection of ports is further limited for any of those other accessories and peripherals you might want to charge.
With a docking station, that’s no longer a problem. The dock itself is connected to mains power, so you can charge your laptop and your other devices when plugged into the dock’s charge-capable ports.
If you work across multiple laptops and/or desktop PCs, then a docking station with a built-in KVM switch can make a massive difference to your workstation comfort and productivity.
A KVM switch (“keyboard, video, mouse switch”) allows you to use the same exact set of keyboard, mouse, and external monitors with multiple systems—all you do is press the KVM button and every docked peripheral switches over to another connected system.
Let’s say you have both a desktop PC and a laptop, and you work on both simultaneously. With a KVM docking station, one set of keyboard/mouse/monitors can be docked, and a single button press can swap between laptop and desktop. (You can also do the same with two laptops, switching between personal and work laptop, for example.)
Andreas Palmer / Unsplash
Andreas Palmer / Unsplash
Andreas Palmer / Unsplash
If you route lots of accessories and peripherals through a docking station, you can cut back on a lot of cable clutter and make your desk space more ergonomically friendly and pleasing to the eye.
Most wired devices—from gaming mice to office printers—come with unwieldy cables that need to be plugged into your laptop and routed somewhere before they can do anything.
By having them permanently plugged into a docking station, it keeps everything simplified. Instead of constantly plugging and unplugging and getting cables crossed, you just plug in your laptop. The messy cables behind the docking station can remain tucked away and hidden.
Some docking stations can actually lock down laptops, making it impossible to disconnect without the physical key.
This can prevent unauthorized visitors from snatching an unattended laptop, and can even prevent employees from “accidentally” taking the laptop. The laptop and dock will need a compatible locking interface, such as the Kensington Lock.
And with a docking station that can be permanently affixed, with peripherals and accessories plugged in at all times, you can further increase security by routing cables through somewhere inaccessible or just making it so that the docking station ports can’t be adjusted.
Not only does this improve hardware security, but it also helps stability by guaranteeing that peripherals, networked devices, and drives remain connected and preventing interruptions.
