Monoprice 13-in-1 Dual HDMI Docking Station Review: A Strong Competitor

This Monoprice docking station lands in the middle of the messy reality that is USB-C hardware: lots of acronyms, ports, and features. What can this Monoprice 13-in-1 Dual-HDMI + DP MST Docking Station do? A decent amount, although it depends on your PC.

What the Monoprice 13-in-1 docking station documentation implies is that you will be able to run a pair of 4K displays on this USB-C docking station. (The “MST” in the product name stands for “MultiStream Transport,” meaning it can power multiple displays.) At an MSRP of $54.99, this would seem like a pretty affordable deal in the world of USB-C hubs and docks.

What Monoprice doesn’t tell you is that the performance of this docking station will depend on the laptop you have: the rule of thumb is newer, better. A Microsoft Surface Book 2 with an 8th Gen Core chip inside produced no output on its USB-C port; However, several recent Samsung and Surface laptops with 12th and 13th Gen Core chips have performed well.

So, what more can you expect? Monoprice’s built-in documentation is confusing, but the actual product page is a little clearer: if you want to use just one external display, you can run it at 4K, 60Hz. (Our tests confirm this.) With two displays, you can run one at 4K30 and the other at 1080p60. Three screens? All must be run in 1080p.

Mark Hachman / IDG

But even on paper it’s more confusing: one HDMI port supports 60Hz; the other, 30Hz. Which? Pull out the documentation. And in fact, when I connected two external displays – regardless of configuration – one displayed 4K30 and the other defaulted to 1440p, 60Hz. It’s better than expected, but it’s still confusing.

This is partly because I had connected the displays, via the docking station, to my PC’s Thunderbolt port, which uses DisplayPort 1.4 as the transport protocol. If you have a PC or laptop with DisplayPort 1.2 (and not many people know if it does, by any chance), expect even slower speeds. Without your laptop documentation in hand, you roll the dice.

Get past that, though, and this Monoprice dock gets simpler. The docking station saves money by not providing a power supply, but connecting your laptop’s USB-C charger to the input port works fine – up to 100W of power. Just be aware that the docking station and any bus-powered devices you have connected will also draw some of that power.

Mark Hachman / IDG

What ports does the Monoprice 13-in-1 docking station include?

Otherwise, there’s a host of ports: five USB-A ports (three transferring data at 5Gbps and two at legacy speeds of 480Mbps), SD and microSD readers (both transferring data at 104MB/s or UHS-I), an audio/mic jack and Gigabit Ethernet, plus HDMI and DisplayPort ports.

Keep in mind that everything transfers over the 10Gbps USB-C bus, so you might notice slowdowns or stuttering when downloading something over Ethernet, transferring data to a hard drive, and viewing it on multiple monitors. It’s not the wharf’s fault.

Mark Hachman / IDG

The Monoprice quay does not suffer from any thermal problem; the plastic chassis heats up, but barely. It measures 5.5 x 2.2 x 0.65 inches.

This 13-in-1 docking station is also quite aggressively priced. We see 8-in-1 docks priced around $25-$35, depending on configuration; the $54.99 seems appropriate. It’s really more of a high-powered dongle than a proper USB-C dock, anyway. You can buy it directly from Monoprice or Target. It is not available in the UK.

For other options, check out our full roundup of the best USB-C docking stations.