In todays era of popularization of USB-C, most smart devices began to use this port, while still exist some differences among these three "USB-C Ports":
- Thunderbolt 3: Support at max 40Gb/s bandwidth, which also supports DisplayPort Alternate Mode, data transfer, charge(Support Three monitors)
- USB-C 3.1 Gen 2: Support at max 10Gb/s bandwidth, which might support DisplayPort Alternate Mode(Support two or three monitors)
- USB-C 3.1 Gen 1: Support at max 5Gb/s bandwidth, UtechSmart docking station is not compatible with it.
Before you purchase this docking station, you need to know:
1: Please check if your laptop owns a USB Type-c(Gen 2)/Thunderbolt 3 port, and support DisplayPort Alternate Mode, if you don’t know how to recognize it, feel free to let us know, we welcome compatibility reports from users as well.
2: Compatible and Incompatible devices(not all series, Please see the User Guide.pdf document under the Technical Specification section below for a more detailed compatibility list.):
Compatible with Dell XPS 13/15, Dell Latitude/Precision; HP Spectre x360/ZBook; Lenovo Yoga/ThinkPad X1 Carbon/ X1 Extreme; MSI GS65 /GS75; MacBook; Huawei; Razer Blade Stealth; Alienware 13/15/17; IPad Pro (only for ios 13.0 and up)
Incompatible with the laptop without USB-C ports like: Most Acer series, Apple USB SuperDrive, Surface Laptop 3, and Nintendo Switch.
3: Display issue: For Mac OS laptop ( Apple Laptop ), its non-mirror mode can only support3 duplicate (mirror), external monitors, due to apple system restrictions. However, your laptop screen can be different images from 3 external monitors.
4: Plugin the Laptops power adapter to the USB-C Power Delivery port before connecting an external hard drive or multiple devices to the docking station.
If your laptop owns an AC adapter, youd better use the original charger directly to connect the laptop to charge, because it will provide the fastest charge speed and HP/Dell does not allow 3rd party charger to charge their laptop.
5: Resolution Problem: If you connect VGA, the resolution of all monitors will be limited to 1920 x 1080@60Hz (maximum). When you connect 3 monitors, it may happen that one of the monitor screen resolutions is lower than 1920 x 1080@60Hz (depending on the monitor and bandwidth).
6: Due to the process of EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) communication, once you plug the monitors, it might blackout screen for a few seconds. The recovery time depends on the and monitor (1 minute at max).
7: The HDMI-Displayport cable only support transfer Displayport to HDMI signal while not support HDMI to Displayport signal.