Yottamaster MS5-T3 Thunderbolt 3 Dock

[DrMacintosh]

Overall rating for this dock: 3/5

 

I bought this Dock for my 2019 16" MacBook Pro. The main concern I had going is was knowing if this dock was capable of running 2 external displays and charging my laptop that came with a 96W charger at only 65W. The answer is yes. But be warned, a few things I did not expect is that this dock is very loud and a 16" MacBook Pro can consume a lot of power under load. Let's discuss.

To get 2 displays off this dock all your displays must be DisplayPort. I connected my main display over native DisplayPort and my other display off a Type C to DisplayPort cable. This setup works and I can set both displays to their native 1440p resolution and144Hz refresh rate. I tried to use a Type C to HDMI cable and that did not work, the Thunderbolt spec will only do DisplayPort natively, so you must use a Type C to DisplayPort Cable. Don't try to use any Type C to HDMI/USB hubs or DP to HDMI/C to HDMI cables off the rear thunderbolt port, they won't work. Also note, a 20Gbps Thunderbolt 3 cable, often found in 1m cable sizes, cannot drive 2 displays, you must use a 40Gbps cable and the included one is only 0.5m.

As for charging, this dock will charge my 2019 16" MacBook Pro, but it does so only at 65W which is slow and is 31W less than my MacBook Pro wants to charge with. The important thing is that the MacBook is not having to use battery power to supplement insufficient wall power, granted this may occur if you're using the CPU and GPU together in a demanding workload, but I don't think the concern is very high. As long as you power your other accessories off the dock, and not your laptop, you should have no issues with charging and the longevity of your laptops battery. (Note: on further testing, running a Parallels Windows 10 VM can cause my MacBook to use battery for supplemental power. I recommend using your laptops included charger for demanding workloads.)

Now for the noise, this dock is equipped with a blower fan, something I've not heard of with other docks. This makes perfect sense though since this dock can house 2x M.2 drives. Those drives, plus all the power delivery, and controllers means that this dock will get warm if you start to push it. I attempted to cover up the intake and exhaust vents on this dock with tape, which removed the "whooshing" of the fan but left the high pitch whine of the fan motor spinning. Pick your poison, but I think leaving it the way it is is a more pleasing sound than just high pitch whining. This fan is why I give this dock 3/5 starts. I suggest turning on the AC, wearing headphones, or playing some music over your laptops speakers. At half volume, my MacBook Pros speakers fully drown out the fan noise. I recommend unplugging this dock when not in use to save your sanity. 

Overall, this is a powerful dock for the price (I got it on Amazon for ~$230). The loud fan puts a real damper on what would otherwise be one of the best docks on the market. I would recommend it for the price if you accept that you're gonna have to unplug it while not using it and that while working you're gonna want some headphones or music to drown out the sound.

 

I hope this review was helpful, its hard to find comprehensive information on this dock online so I figured I'd buy it and provide it.