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Plugable 5 Display USB-C Dock (UD-7400PD) – five 4K displays at 60Hz

Pros

• Supports up to five external displays at 4K 60Hz
• 3x 8K at 60Hz displays
• 11 ports
• 2x HDMI video ports
• 140W PD laptop charging
• 2.5Gb Ethernet

Cons

• No SD card reader
• North America only

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• Connection: USB-C (10Gbps)
• Software: DisplayLink
• Max screens: 5

Let’s begin with the DisplayLink dock that supports the most external displays: the Plugable UD-7400PD allows even M1 MacBook users to run up to five 4K displays at a 60Hz refresh rate. This is made possible by use of the latest Synaptics’ DisplayLink DL-7400 chipset. No other dock can match it. Although five displays is probably overkill for most users, financial and data analysts can’t have enough screens and will love it. You don’t have to add five displays, of course, but this dock is the one that will let you do so.

There are two HDMI ports (one HDMI 2.1 for 8K and one 2.0) plus three downstream USB-C ports to connect either those displays or other devices. There are two fast 10Gbps USB-A ports, speedy 2.5Gb Ethernet and an audio jack, but no SD card reader. At the front of the dock, one of the USB-C ports can output power to a connected device at 30W, which is perfect if you want to fast-charge an iPhone or even an iPad.

If you need faster bandwidth, the Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station with DisplayLink (reviewed below) boasts 40Gbps data transfer and supports four displays for the M3 MacBook Air (while shut in Clamshell Mode), but with it the M1 and M2 MacBooks are limited to three (one at 6K and two at 4K).

IT managers will appreciate Plugable’s DockTag technology that works with the UD-7400PD, a web-based solution designed for hot-desking and real-time IT asset management in mixed-platform offices.

Read our full Plugable 5 Display USB-C Dock (UD-7400PD) review