W510 with Mini Dock Plus Series 3 - Critical Review w/pics

[RonS]

Summary: Lenovo, you blew it. The Mini Dock Plus Series 3 does nothing that's not already found on the W510.

The Mini Dock Plus Series 3 (S3+) has two part numbers: 433810U (90W power supply) and 433820U (135W power supply, intended for the W510 Mobile Workstation). Other than the power supply, the units are identical.

A "port replicator" is a convenience item that saves you the hassle of unplugging cables every time you want to take your notebook somewhere. A "docking station", on the other hand, typically provides capabilities not found on the notebook itself - a way to extend it's functions to make it closer to that of a desktop.

I'm going to start this post with a quick review of the Mini Dock Plus Series 3 and the two previous Thinkpad docking stations. I'm writing this with a slant towards adding additional monitors -- something I do a lot. Here are some pictures:



Thinkpad Docks - Quick History

• Dock II (Older Thinkpads, example T4x). This dock was a true dock and expanded the capabilities of a Thinkpad to near that of a desktop. It included
  • PCI Video card bay (or most any other PCI card)
  • two additional PCMCIA slots (can be used for PCMCIA video cards)
  • Ultrabay for 3rd hard drive, CD, etc.
  • VGA output
  • USB, LAN, audio, Serial, Parallel, etc.
• Advanced Dock (Thinkpad T6x, W500, etc). This was also a true dock that added capabilities not found on the Thinkpad itself. It included features such as
  • PCI-Express Video Card bay
  • Ultrabay for 3rd hard drive, CD, etc
  • Dual-link DVI and VGA output
  • Memory card reader, S/PDIF, USB, LAN, audio, serial, parallel, etc.
• Mini Dock Plus Series 3 provides nothing that's not already found on the W510.
  • VGA, DVI and DisplayPort outputs (max of two active at a time)
  • USB, eSATA, LAN, Audio

The S3+ is really little more than a port replicator. Granted, it's called a "mini" dock, but I think it's a stretch to even call it that. Here are a few notes from my testing:

• The S3+ DVI outputs are single-link DVI, limited to 1920x1200. You cannot drive 30" displays in full resolution. This is a HUGE disappointment, and definitely a step back from the previous dock.
• I benchmarked the eSata and USB 2.0 ports on the dock and they have identical performance to those ports found on the W510 itself. The previous Advanced Dock's I/O was bandwidth limited to 34MB/sec.
• The W510's DisplayPort output has a documented max resolution of 2560x1600. I haven't found any information indicating what the max resolution is of the the DisplayPort outputs on the S3+. I have hardware on order to start testing this.
• There is no bay for an add-on video card like the previous docking stations. So, there's no way to expand the capabilities of the system. Lenovo just gave up on one of the biggest benefits to buying a Thinkpad, in my opinion.

With the base W510 unit, you're limited to a max of two displays (any two of the built-in screen, VGA, and DisplayPort). Throw in the S3+ dock, and you're still limited to two displays. One of the early articles I read about the S3+ dock was that it would have a built-in video adapter, but that's not the case. So, it would seem that the only way to expand the video capabilities of the W510/S3+ dock is to use DisplayLink video adapters, which run at a max resolution of 1920x1200. I've been using one of these for a few days, and I can tell you that they take a lot of CPU resources to keep going. With just one plugged in, the Core i7 overclock gadget shows the CPU working much harder every time I drag a window around on the DisplayLink monitor. I can't imagine having several DisplayLink monitors, grinding the system down to a slow crawl.

Note: There is a glimmer of hope for adding displays to the W510. I have some hardware ordered that may provide two dual-link DVI outputs on the W510. But it will take a few weeks before I know. It involves the ExpressCard/34, which has nothing to do with the S3+ dock.

Update: That glimmer of hope has panned out! See this post.

[Oliver26n]

I agree, absolutely blows. Since it's called the mini dock, I wonder if there's any possibility that they will release a bigger, more complete (and more expensive) dock.

[dr_st]

Indeed, it's a mini-dock, not a dock. Essentially it's about the same as the previous Mini-Dock (Advanced Mini-Dock), in the sense that it adds DVI and a USB hub.

But the Advanced Mini-Dock at least had real Dual-Link DVI (which here they just seemingly replaced with two single-link DVIs, WTF?), and SPDIF out (for the approximately 4 people world-wide who actually used it).

The thing is, previous generation machines did not have a second/digital video port on the laptop itself, so the DVI was actually a big deal. Now with DP becoming part of the chassis, DVI on the dock seems almost pointless, more like just a simple way to support legacy monitors (and it's not like you cannot use a simple DP->DVI adapter...)

So, Ron's analysis is spot-on - it's just a fancy port replicator at this point. And I have to join Oliver in wondering, whether a real dock is released at some point for the new Thinkpads.

[scillyisles]

Yes the lack of proper expansion docks on the newer Thinkpads is a big step backwards. I use this feature extensively with both T42p and T61P - have docking stations at work and at home. I have been looking to upgrade to a W510 and lack of proper expansion dock means I am looking now at HP who do seem to provide this capability.