CalDigit’s new Thunderbolt dock comes with the most ports ever

CalDigit announced the CalDigit TS4 on Tuesday, a new Thunderbolt 4 docking station that the company claims offers the most ports ever: 18 in all. Oddly, however, only one is a dedicated display port.

CalDigit’s TS4 succeeds the CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 3 Plus or TS3 Plus, one of the top-rated Thunderbolt docks in our current roundup of best Thunderbolt docks for your laptop. The new, premium TS4 also ships with a premium price: $359.95. CalDigit said that the first batch has already sold out, with new docks arriving in March.

The specifications read like a connectivity dream:

• 3 x Thunderbolt 4 (40Gb/s)
• 3 x USB-C (10Gb/s)
• 5 x USB-A (10Gb/s)
• 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
• 1 x SD 4.0 (UHS-II)
• 1 x microSD 4.0 (UHS-II)
• 1 x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet
• 1 x Front Combo Audio In/Out (3.5mm)
• 1 x Rear Audio Out (3.5mm)
• 1 x Rear Audio In (3.5mm)
• 1 x DC In (19.5V 11.80A)

Two features stand out, however. First, there’s only dedicated display port, the DisplayPort 1.4 port that ships as part of the dock. You do have the option to daisy-chain the DisplayPort displays, or else connect one or more to the Thunderbolt 4 outputs, provided that your display natively supports Thunderbolt inputs. Otherwise, you’ll have to accommodate an HDMI input via some sort of a USB-C dongle.

Otherwise, a notable feature of the dock is the support for 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet. With multi-gigabit fiber broadband beginning to take off in American cities, it’s not enough for a router or Thunderbolt dock to simply accept Gigabit Ethernet; you’ll need multi-gig Ethernet or else risk bottlenecking your system.