Laptop Docks! They're pretty neat!

the comments on this one are gonna be a doozy hello there did you know that some people work differently than you do weird right well today I'd like to talk to you about one of the fundamental tools I use to do my work this a laptop you edit videos from a laptop why are you doing that to yourself oh it gets worse I often write them on a Chromebook but anyway this is much more than just a laptop it's also quite a capable desktop computer I know it's confusing but that's what we're gonna be talking about today but first hi I just moved ooh wrong shirt hi I just want to set the record straight and let you all know right now that I've also got a duper super pants II fans for real desktop PC you can tell us a good one because it has blue lights in it but you see there's some deep deep soul-searching I've come to the conclusion that I don't really need this thing it's it's nice to have but I don't really need it you see while I need a fair amount of computing horsepower to do what I do for you I actually don't need all that much especially because video editing is only but a small part of my overall video making process now first let me be clear that just as I said there are people that work differently from you there are people that work differently from me some people do nothing but video editing all day long and they're certainly not gonna find my tools adequate or maybe you work with cat or other modeling software and you need some big beefy GPU at your disposal but specifically to you folks hang tight what I'm about to show you in this video certainly isn't a one-size-fits-all solution or anything but it's an option that I think is really underappreciated and also just not very well known outside of specific corporate environments and that option is a laptop and a dock watch this magic here's my laptop all neat and pretty and here's a desk slightly less meat over here is a cute little box with check cables and junk plugged into it and if I take this single cable and plug it into the Thunderbolt three capable USB C port of my computer suddenly my laptop has transformed into a veritable desktop computer part of a complete desktop breakfast I've got a real keyboard and mouse a high-resolution ultra wide monitor and I could even have a second one if I wanted or just use the laptops own screen as a second display I've also got some real speakers and thanks to the fact that the doc has Ethernet I could even have this wired into networking and Printers and whatever other junk I might need oh and it's charging the laptop through that cable too so it really is 100% functionally equivalent to a desktop PC and here's the kicker when I'm working on my videos and Adobe Premiere I don't notice a difference at all between my laptop and my desktop when it comes to overall performance granted they are running essentially the same processors 7700 K in the desktop and a 7700 HQ in here but there's a pretty substantial difference in graphics hardware a 1050 versus a 1080 despite that there's only one thing that I know my laptop doesn't do as well and that's export the video file some of that is down to the notoriously flawed thermal design of this Dell XPS 15 the voltage regulator modules overheat causing the most annoying throttling ever not thermal but power throttling and it sucks here's hoping the redesign has fixed that but thanks to the latest Adobe update which takes advantage of the GPU for actual rendering that issue is much less pronounced as it stands now my laptop is about 20% slower than my desktop at rendering a video so it takes like 20 minutes instead of 16 tragic I know now I'm sure many of you already know about the wonderful world of Docs some of you might have even heard some sort of tech tips about them but for those who haven't well I'm here today to extol the virtues of this wonderful method of personal computing and also tell you about some of its current challenges and future opportunities because you see I think there are many more of you out there that would benefit from this computing lifestyle than you realize a modest laptop these days is more than powerful enough for the average person and if you like me value having both mobile and desktop computing capabilities you might find having one device fill both roles to be quite splendid oh and before I forget this isn't exclusive to Windows machines MacBooks can make use of docks too but don't ask me for any advice there because I don't have any those of you using Linux you'll just have to figure it out yourself like you do everything else about your computer first an acknowledgement of history this isn't anything new docking solutions have been around for a long time lots of them involved weird giant proprietary connectors on bottoms of laptops that would give your old iPod pin Envy what is new ish is the world of USB C and/or thunderbolt free docks and well regrettably this world ain't perfect yet particularly on the thunderbolts died there seemed to still be a few compatibility bugs floating around and support for thurible 3 in general remains somewhat spotty and also just incredibly confusing look I know we're headed towards one connector to rule them all which is pretty great but having the same physical connector supports so many wildly different technical standards is not easy to parse let's not get started on USB for either and even where compatibility seems assured there are sometimes other nuanced issues like in the case of Thunderbolt how many PCI Express Lanes does that particular connector on your particular laptop support or even weirder things for example this model of dock is specifically listed as compatible by Dell with this specific model of laptop which is cool because it is but the dock was available with two different power supplies this laptop needs the larger one to work correctly otherwise it might have been powering limited by the smaller power supply or potentially it wouldn't have been able to charge from it or perhaps it wouldn't work at all this appears to still be a factor with currently available models there's definitely work to be done to make this a more seamless and universal experience like for example the fact that many docks aren't even using Thunderbolt at all and are just operating over us and for the moments those seem to be more universally compatible but for what it's worth things are wonderful No blissful when you have an own compatible set up take well take this exact PC the laptops display is a downright gorgeous 4k panel but since 4k on a 15-inch screen is a little ridiculous I have windows scaling everything to 175 percent so I can see things Windows gets a lot of hate for how it handles scaling and to be honest it deserves it so it has gotten much better lately but to its credit when I plug in the dock it correctly remembers to turn off the scaling and everything recombobulator well after a few seconds of reconfiguration izing and handshakes and whatnot everything is good to go now I have an honest-to-goodness desktop this particular dock is fairly basic and also I think discontinued but has connections for three monitors though I'm pretty sure it's limited to using only two at a time if memory serves over HDMI mini DisplayPort or VGA if you want to go that route gigabit ethernet 2 USB 2 ports 4 USB 3 ports 2 in the front two in the back a rear audio jack and a front headphone jack you can add a hub onto one of the USB ports if you needed but also keep in mind that all of the ports and the card reader on the laptop itself remain usable if you have any that is but sadly even this officially compatible dock from the same manufacturer as the computer has misbehaved a few times occasionally when I first plug it in it just doesn't notice that that happened and won't do anything until I cycle the power to it I still haven't figured out when exactly the little power button on it is going to actually wake up the laptop when it's asleep or shutdown seems to have about a 70% success rate and as seamless as the overall experience is when it's playing nicely the way Windows handles its audio devices is a little strange and a few fights have occurred between premier and Windows regarding which audio should be going where it's fun now you might be asking why is he telling me all these bad things if he wants me to like docks so much well for one thing I don't want to oversell the experience as being universally amazing because as it stands now if you or someone you know is not computer savvy enough to be comfortable with a finding a compatible laptop and dock combo and be a bit of occasional troubleshooting this might be a bit frustrating now a bit of Google and reveals that at least for general-purpose docks things are much much better than they used to be which is corroborated by my personal experience however things just aren't quite perfect yet I won't sugarcoat it but assuming you're comfortable with a little turning it off and on again and or that things improve down the road as I'm sure they will let me tell you why this might be the bee's knees for thee you see if you're like me you want to be able to do anything you might do with a computer on the go I want a portable machine with a full-blown desktop operating system with all of my delightfully buggy Adobe software at the sometimes ready so a few years ago I purchased this fairly high-end laptop $1600 for those curious which can handle that competently now say you want to also have a desktop computer there are plenty of reasons you might want one such as the dramatically improved ergonomics of a real chair with a real monitor at a real height and a real keyboard in a real mouse maybe you've got a printer and scanner thingy set up they're all nice and convenient like and maybe you've got a bunch of external drives and other peripherals just dying for something to talk to well you could buy another computer to make use of those things or you could just instead buy a doc then the very same computer that you use on the go can access that monitor and that printer scanner thing and that keyboard and that Mouse and even your external drives or whatever else all with just a single cable and because the doc will charge the laptop for you if you do a lot of back and forth between mobile and stationary computing well you can just leave your laptop's power brick and other portable mode accessories in your bag just take the laptop out plug it in and boom full-blown desktop no need to get out the power brick or anything at all and when you need to take your computer somewhere all it takes is detaching it from the dock and putting it in your back the very same computer is now your laptop fully charged and ready to go I like this solution a lot so much in fact that I'm considering upgrading to the new Dell XPS 17 which seems to have addressed the annoying thermal issues of this design and potentially retiring my desktop altogether I know blasphemy but here's the thing I have a somewhat minimalist philosophy when it comes to my computer stuff and more generally my IT life I don't like spending any time on perfecting my workflow or optimizing system performance or any of that junk I just want something that allows me to do my work with basic competency oh and speaking of competency one of the more exciting things that Thunderbolt 3 specifically has allowed to happen is Docs with external GPU enclosures Thunderbolt 3 carries certified fresh' PCI Express through it meaning that real graphics cards can operate over Thunderbolt 3 for those of you that are into gaming or otherwise need a powerful GPU at your disposal this is an exciting option slap an RT X 2080 in there or whatever is current and suddenly your laptop is able to take advantage of an actual desktop class GPU now if you wanted to do this you should know that the whole how many PCI Express Lanes does this port carry becomes a significant factor and compatibility becomes even more dicey so I'm not saying this is perfect but I do expect it to improve as time goes on if it interests you I'd suggest you do some research on the topic before you get too excited compatibility between devices seems to be not at all guaranteed at this point especially when you factor in other operating systems now there are some people who like to insist that I'm somehow losing the game of life by using a laptop for video editing some people say I've wasted money on a laptop I could have saved like 400 whole dollars if I built my own desktop which is not portable but nevermind that or sometimes they insist that by not using the fastest available hardware I'm slowing myself down this in particular leads to an assertion I've had to make over and over again particularly on render time is not work time at all when I make a video even a simple one there's going to be at least two days of script writing and revision even with a script like this in which I don't really do any research at all at least a full day of shooting video or more depending on the projects complexity and then usually two or three days at the very least of editing work the time it takes my computer to turn all that work into a finished video file is an entirely insignificant factor because it's not work to me it's about as much work as preheating your oven all I need is a computer that can handle the editing part that's the only part where I'm actually interacting with it without being frustrating if I can scrub through the timeline and preview the video without issue I'm fine and both this laptop and my desktop which are both three years old now are more than capable of that editing only taxes hardware in short bursts so even my thermally challenged laptop doesn't have a problem with that very long and involved part of the creative process granted I don't shoot video with a red 8k camera or even a Blackmagic pocket or whatever but I don't feel like I need to for my work my camera which is a Linux g7 by the way is totally fine and I don't feel held back by it at least not yet I'm probably gonna keep using it to let either breaks or I find it is holding me back if I got a new camera and find that my computer can't handle its output then sure I might need to invest in a more beastly machine but right now that would just be a waste of money and also time transition costs are a real thing you know serious talk time I'm trying not to toot my own horn here especially because there are upgrades to my equipment that I want to make but I think that one of the most damaging things the tech community has done is create lust for shiny new things and worse suggests the thought that without them your work is less valuable that's not true and it never was you are what makes your work unique not the tools you use if you have the resources to get the most whiz-bang stuff out there by all means have fun but don't think that can't get started with what you have and while I know and understand that if your tools are faster or better you can get more done you need to put fought in to where those time savings will actually occur and whether they're actually helpful for me an independent content creator my computer is not and has never been a limiting factor and making regular upgrades to it would be more of a bother than it would be helpful I deal with a lot of people telling me that I should be doing things this way or that way and you know that's fine a lot of it is earnest offers of help or at least is perceived to be but a lot of it also doesn't bother to understand my workflow my desire for simplicity rather than complexity or my philosophy that time spent chasing performance gains is usually time poorly spent if it's something you enjoy or if it's your hobby by all means but I'll tell you now that I am much more frustrated by those who try and tell me why I'm being held back by the way I work than I've ever been frustrated by this computer to put it bluntly I like to do work on my computer not work on my computer and that's why I don't use Linux yeah I went there anyway that aside aside let's talk about cases where this wouldn't be appropriate or desirable first gaming may be GPU enclosures make that a possibility but there's a lot of nuance there that I won't go into secondly people who don't need a full blown desktop OS on the go if you're someone who does a lot of work on an iPad then maybe you don't use a laptop at all in which case the solution is entirely meaningless to you and third real power users who need or can otherwise take advantage of a thread ripping desktop PC for you even if you also have a laptop a doc is likely not of interest but if you're someone who uses a desktop operating system on the go with any regularity meaning you're someone with a somewhat capable laptop and you also like having a true desktop experience for long agonizing sessions of staring at Premiere and hoping it doesn't crash when you import that JPEG then perhaps there's no need to have two computers I can honestly say at this point that I really don't and I would have actually saved money had I bought this laptop before I bought my desktop I know that just blew some minds out there I could have saved money by buying this first because well even with its thermal issues which do annoy me quite a lot it has yet to get in my way I've spent much more time trying to eliminate the thermal issues than I could ever have hoped to save by fixing them and that's what I mean about chasing performance gains it can often be a silly time waster now to address the concerns of the laptop haters out there you're right laptops tend to not last as long they're harder to repair often impossible to upgrade and the cost of a laptop with equivalent performance to any particular desktop is always higher plus as my laptop is a wonderful example of many have disastrously flawed thermal designs so long gaming sessions or rendering video can be a problem but personally I think that shouldn't be something thrown at laptops as a category particularly since better thermal designs do exist they're just frustratingly uncommon but more importantly those concerns are more often than not irrelevant to the average person if you're concerned about the thermal performance or upgradability of your machine you are probably an enthusiast power user or gamer there are a lot of you out there yes I'm not saying you don't exist but there are also a lot of people who don't fall into those categories and couldn't care less honestly I lean in that direction though I'm not shy to performing a few upgrades and here's the thing even I a professional content creator I think I get to say that now and fine with this flawed three-year-old machine there is something to be said for the upgrade ability of a desktop PC that's for sure and it's true that my laptop might break long before my desktop would but here's my truth I want a laptop which can handle everything I do for this job I want to be able to take it with me when I travel and be productive anywhere that means I'm always going to have a powerful portable computer and given that why what I also need a powerful stationary desktop the fact is I don't thanks to a doc I can have the best of both worlds with one machine it doesn't matter if my laptop cost more than an equivalent desktop or if it breaks sooner or any of those other concerns because I will always have one it's that subset of people where I think a doc can be really valuable and actually save you money and there's one other benefit that I think deserves attention energy use laptops are always at least to some extent designed to optimize their energy efficiency because you've got a battery onboard you want to maximize the time you can use it duh desktop PCs have gotten a lot better in recent years but in general efficiency isn't a huge concern of theirs my desktop pulls more power from the wall at idle than this does when rendering a video and that's how that adds up which might be part of why docked laptops are increasingly gaining favor in the corporate environment when you've got hundreds of computers running for eight hours a day or more you can save some serious dough on your energy bills if they're all laptops and boy our companies that made that switch happy given that there's a pandemic right now if you can take your entire computer home with you when needed that's a nice bonus but I'd like to see Doc's get a little more traction outside the corporate world as I said I'm honestly to the point where having an actual desktop PC is superfluous for my needs yes I want a desktop computer but there's no reason that needs to be a 15-pound box on the floor one thing that desperately needs to happen and not just for the benefit of docks is consistent branding and clear delineation between us PC and Thunderbolt it's a mess and there are docking solutions using both technical standards given that Thunderbolt 3 is more powerful overall with the potential for a GPUs and whatnot I would expect it to eventually become the de facto standard but right now that's not the case and the future is anything but clear so if you're interested in this as an idea I cannot stress enough that you should make sure whatever dock you are looking at is compatible with your computer and also since this is the world of tech unfortunately we can't be assured things are going to be anything near stable if these rumors that max are ditching x86 architecture are true well I wonder how Thunderbolt will stay a thing in that ecosystem perhaps it will be just fine but I can't imagine things are gonna just be all hunky-dory particularly with external GPUs the way we compute is constantly being upended and in fact that's one of the primary reasons desktop PCs have largely fallen out of favor I mean loads of people hardly use traditional computers at all anymore laptop or desktop I'm sure that annoys all you gamers out there but it's true and speaking of rumors of switching to arm here's perhaps the most embarrassing thing I own this is a microsoft lumia 950xl the last flagship Windows Phone yeah I bought this for the virtually all of you that are unfamiliar with this it had one feature that I naively thought would change the smartphone game continuum Microsoft developed a doc that worked with this phone and certain others to create a true Windows 10 desktop environment running from the phone itself you could plug this phone into the dock and suddenly have full desktop versions of the Microsoft Office suite and hopefully down the road other apps I thought this was pretty neat imagine a world where your smartphone was the only computer you need people envisioned laptop chassis x' which were basically just a display keyboard and extra battery for the phone and it seemed like there was a lot of potential to make the phone the new pc while i never once used it i have the dock somewhere i might play around with it on the second channel at some point i thought this could really be a game changer of course it wasn't not at all but it was a really neat idea and frankly if these rumors about Apple are true one has to wonder if iOS iPad OS and Mac OS will eventually merge into one and Apple will reinvent this concept and probably get credit for it too but anyway that's neither here nor there also I should add that there are Android phones out there today which can do this very thing with a USBC dock though obviously there are limitations there I want to reiterate that this certainly isn't for everyone if I didn't want the ability to edit videos in Premiere on the go I probably would have a much cheaper laptop I mean I do it's my Chromebook but that might be my only portable computer and it's spending more money on your desktop in favor of a cheaper or no laptop is your game I'm not gonna stop you that makes a lot of sense in my shoes though I want a powerful laptop and given that my desktop is largely redundant at this point I'm surely not gonna get rid of it not anytime soon and even if I do upgrade my laptop there is value in having a separate computer for other things compartmentalizing and that way it can be quite helpful and honestly I'm doing that right now plus it doesn't hurt to have a backup machine but I hope this video has gotten you thinking a bit if nothing else I just want to spread awareness of this solution even if you had no interest at all in a desktop PC well maybe you'd like some way to seamlessly use a real monitor and stuff with a doc form factor is arbitrary I bought my laptop before I was aware of the existence of thunderbolt docks it was actually an upgrade to my mom's work computer that brought them to my attention seeing her new computer connect to two monitors and all the other junk with just a single USBC cable made me realize hey my laptop has one of those ports is that could I do that serendipitously a quick google revealed that indeed her new dock was compatible with my existing laptop so I bought one of my own and I really liked it maybe you would too thanks for watching again super important thing here I am NOT you and you are not me my priorities are undoubtedly different from yours and that's okay I think that being aware of options is always good and I get the sense that not enough people are aware of this one I hope this video can serve as an example of what's possible with a little outside the desktop box thinking and I also hope that at least some of you will take some inspiration from the fact that a three-year-old thermally challenged laptop makes these videos for you [Music] what I'm talking about oh I'm not talking why I'm talking but that's not how the sentence or my philosophy that time spent chasing performance gazes thanks of course though I'm gonna say for all the people out there who are still giving Windows crap for this it's so much better than it used to be I guarantee you this will be less than a minute probably less than 30 seconds a modest laptop these days more than those of you that this is like a minute long line what did I do this for how many takes will this line take my guess is 17 there seem to still be a few compatibility blood bugs bugs laptops display is a gorgeous four cape gorgeous [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Technology Connections

Views: 1,262,930

Keywords:

Id: Pc31L3zJiaU

Length: 27min 55sec (1675 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/TechConnectify]

I feel like here in the land of Reddit nothing in this will be new to anyone.

[u/fizzlefist]

Can confirm, laptops are huuuuge in the corporate world, especially when a typical Dell/Lenovo/HP mini desktop is using laptop-grade hardware anyway. Unless you're actually in need of heavy hardware for regular use (graphics or large data-sets for example), a laptop can meet almost all the needs of a most users.

Also, yeah, Windows Phone... Thanks for ruining that Ballmer. Forever stuck 3 years behind iOS and Android until it died.

[u/Who_GNU]

With that CPU and GPU you have a desktop replacement laptop, so it makes sense that it could replace your desktop. A decade ago, desktop replacement laptops were several inches thick and weighed several pounds more than a normal laptop, but modern ones are perfectly serviceable laptops, that just cost more and have a shorter battery life.

When you replace yours, I highly recommend looking into a Ryzen 4000 series processor. Especially for modern multi-threaded applications, like nonlinear video editors, they get far more processing done, per Watt of power, so power throttling isn't at all common, even on desktop replacement models.

[u/gardeningwithsilicon]

The popshot at linux felt unwarranted. =(

[u/Talkren_]

The chromebook joke made me chortle. Also, I am one of those seven people.

[u/[deleted]]

I have nothing but bad things to say about [Thunderbolt and USB] laptop docks, horrible clunky broken things they tend to be, especially at scale. The fact that Windows tries to be smart and mess with monitor position based on both display serial and where it thinks each screen is attached makes for lots of frustration in a large deployment of otherwise identical hot-desks.

The old fashioned proper docks that used a dedicated connector were fine, as they weren't using crap USB or Thunderbolt controllers for everything - some even let you stuff PCIe cards in to them. They were cool. No wires.

[u/Narcotras]

There's something I've always wondered, what do you do for work other than the youtube channel? You seem pretty knowledgeable about lots of stuff, so I wonder

[u/Jubei_]

What about those weird laptop cooling pads that run off USB?

Sure it would add a second connector to fidget with, but if it helps cool the machine it may be worth playing around with. Then again if the throttled performance doesn't bother you or doesn't happen often it won't be worth it.

...or just rig up some small, padded blocks so it's not resting directly on the desk - like cheapo books found at a yard sale (not that I've ever done that...).

[u/[deleted]]

The content wasn’t all that interesting to me but I almost did a spit-take at “Professional Content Producer”.

Yes, Alec the Professional Content Producer. That is freaking awesome! Is that what you put on your tax return? Good on you!