USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 dock with many connectors demoed by Realtek

The USB dock prototype should be launched later this year at a sub-US$100 price. (Source: Anandtech)

Realtek is almost ready to launch a more affordable all-in-one USB dock for laptops. The latest prototype features a 10 Gb/s USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 main port splits the bandwidth across a great selection of connectors. Even though there is no Thudnerbolt 3 support, all the connector chips are proprietary, so the dock should feature a sub-US$100 price.

by Bogdan Solca, 2018/06/19

Many laptops nowadays, including some of Apple’s models, come with the bare minimum number of connectors and sometimes users need to look into good USB hubs in order to gain access to at least a few more USB ports. There are sophisticated docks that come with a multitude of outputs and inputs, but they tend to be pretty expensive, as the makers have to acquire chips from various companies. Realtek is looking to further reduce the costs of such complex docks by providing proprietary chips for all the connectors, which are powered through a single USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 connection.

The prototype presented by Realtek is called Turnkey and includes just about every connector possible. Realtek is already providing a multitude of chips to motherboard integrators, so this USB dock comes with a production ready design, not necessitating further R&D or other manufacturing costs. The dock itself links to host PCs through a 10 Gb/s USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 main port, which splits the bandwidth among 4x USB-A ports + 1x USB-C header, 2x DP 1.4 + 1x HDMI + 1x D-Sub video outputs, a TRSR audio jack and a GbE jack. Unfortunately no Thunderbolt 3 connector here, quite understandable, though, since this is a more affordable dock.

No pricing information was disclosed by Realtek for now, but the Turnkey dock could get a sub-US$100 MSRP at launch.