Dock and hub reviews

Five docks and hubs a MacBook Air owner might consider for one or two monitors. Each score comes from the maker's and Apple's documentation, applied to the same published rubric.

Researched, not hands-on tested

Sorted by overall score. A low score means the documentation does not support a two-monitor MacBook Air desk, not that the product is faulty. How we score

  1. Best overall

    Plugable TBT-UDM

    Thunderbolt 4 dock. Plugable documents two 4K 60Hz HDMI monitors on M4, M5 and lid-closed M3, with no driver.

    8.9/10 Very good

  2. Best for M1 and M2

    Plugable UD-ULTC4K

    DisplayLink dock. Up to three 4K 60Hz monitors on M1 to M4 with DisplayLink Manager; no HDCP.

    7.4/10 Good

  3. Most ports

    CalDigit TS4

    Thunderbolt 4 dock with 18 ports and 98W charging. CalDigit's manual names only the original M1 among MacBook Air chips, with one display; M2 to M5 are not named.

    7.1/10 Good

  4. Best compact

    CalDigit SOHO Dock

    Small bus-powered hub. One 4K 60Hz monitor on a Mac and 90W pass-through; a second monitor mirrors.

    4.9/10 Limited

  5. Skip on a Mac

    Plugable USBC-11IN1E

    Dual-HDMI hub. On a Mac the second HDMI port mirrors, and Plugable does not recommend it for Mac.

    4.3/10 Limited

The art on these pages is our own illustration of each product's documented port types, not a product photo.