The digital age has highlighted our insatiable demand to create and consume content. In my humble view, the only things that rivals this is the ravenous appetite of teenagers and our need for more ports on our computers. Oh and the tax office.

When Minisopuru offered their 13-in-1 DisplayLink Laptop Docking Station for review, I was happy to have the opportunity to run with it.

Minisopuru13-in-1 DisplayLink Laptop Docking Station

 

First Impressions

By and large few companies deviates from the design language set by Apple many moons ago. The Minisopuru follows in a similar vein with a brushed aluminium body, contrasted with black fascia on the front and back.

Every port is labelled in muted white text, and port groups have an outline around them. In person it’s actually not as in your face as it sounds, and given that I am unlikely to change the major connections frequently, it’s nice to have the labels to refer to when needed.

 

The Unit

The box comes with everything to get going. Obviously it came with the 13-in-1 docking station. Alongside it is a 36W DC power adapter, a handy USB-C to USB-A adaptor, a durable braided USB-C cable, a flash drive with the DisplayLink installers as well as the obligatory manuals and compliance documents.

Not surprisingly the dock bristles with ports. Going from left to right, the front face has two USB-A and one USB-C both 3.2 Gen 1 data only ports that supports a maximum of 5 Gbps transmission.

Next to that is a 3.5mm audio jack, followed by two USB-A 2.0 ports with a maximum of 480 Mbps and 7.5W power.

On the back there are the three display connectors. These are set out in a specific way to support up to three displays.

Display 1 is HDMI port (only), Display 2 is a DP port (only), and Display 3 is HDMI and DP – but pick one or the other and not both. It is capable of supporting three monitors at 4K resolution at 60Hz.

To round out to thirteen ports, t here is a Gigabit Ethernet port followed by a USB Type-C host port and a USB Type-C PD 3.1 with a maximum 100W of power.

Minisopuru13-in-1 DisplayLink Laptop Docking Station

 

In Use

Before you hook everything up, you will need to install the DisplayLink driver on your machine. This has been provided on a flash drive but it never hurts to check for the latest version online.

You do also need the DisplayLink Manager from your OS’ appstore. Supported OSes are Windows 7+, MacOS, Chrome OS, Ubuntu and Android 5+. There is no direct support for other Linux distros or Unix but the Ubuntu release does have an open source component for the brave and savvy.

From this point on its a matter of plugging everything in and away you go.

I had no issues getting the dock up and running, both through a native USB-C and USB-A via the provided adaptor.

I swapped out my long serving (read: suffering) Lenovo dock for the Minisopuru and nothing happened. In this case this is the best possible outcome because nothing changed, nothing went wrong. Other than the physical act of swapping hardware, I kept on working without even a pause. There was a catch though which I’ll cover shortly.

From a performance point of view, my previous dock was old enough to predate the common prevalence of USB-C ports. The Minisopuru brought that part of my setup into modern standards. What is better is that I can interchange between an older laptop with USB-A only and the newer ones on USB-C.

It has made an incredible difference when I am working at full flight. I can easily swap laptops and continue working and enjoy the benefits of the same consistent setup on my workspace.

Minisopuru13-in-1 DisplayLink Laptop Docking Station

Speed Test

Throwing my newest USB drive into the test, being the Kingston DataTraveler 80M. Running an usbdeview speed test with the drive directly attached to the machine, it returned the following speeds on average:
Read: 22.15 MB/Sec
Write: 190.00 MB/Sec
When running through the Minisopuru, irrespective of whether it was USB-A or USB-C connected, it returned the following speeds on average:
Read: 22.33 MB/Sec
Write: 185.57 MB/Sec
Obviously the actual speed varies between tests, but the take away is that the dock does not have a significant impact on the drive performance.

Other Features

The dock features a Kensington Lock on the left side for those with the need.

Whilst you could conceivably have the dock standing up on its side, it is not really designed for it. That said a 3D printed stand would make it much more stable in that orientation and perhaps save some desk space.

 

Gripes

The Minisopuru isn’t without faults. Not so much in the performance overall but in the design.

The dock is literally packed with the latest standards in everything, except for the power. In 2023, they have made an old school DC power adaptor a mandatory requirement to power the Minisopuru.

Secondly, there is a huge caveat around power delivery to devices. In order to deliver power to any device, be it a phone of laptop, you have to supply power to the PD port on the dock. Additionally, only the two USB-A 2.0 ports are rated to charge external devices. My correspondences with the marketing teams tells me that the PD port supports up to 90W in charging laptops, but the website says 100W.

Edited 5 September 2023: Minisopuru has clarified that the PD port supports 100W input, with an estimated output of 90W if all ports are connected due to additional consumption of power by the dock. This may be an issue for Macbook Pro users in which case you would want to direct power your laptop.

It is a bizarre implementation where I have to double power the dock in order to…. have a single cable to extend my laptop and power it, or to charge my devices.  Honestly team, what is the thought process behind this?

I also had some random terrible lag with keyboard input from time to time. The problem goes away when I move my Bolt dongle back to my laptop. Diving in deeper with testing, it seems to happen if I have my Logi Bolt dongle plugged into the USB-A 2.0 port AND an USB device plugged into the USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port concurrently.

Lastly, I am not sure what happened with the layout of the ports on the back of the unit. The alignment and spacing is not uniform and it is something that you can’t unsee. On the bright side, it is generally hidden away and not as noticeable when cables are plugged in but the OCD part of me is crying inside.

Minisopuru13-in-1 DisplayLink Laptop Docking Station

 

Conclusions

The Minisopuru 13-in-1 DisplayLink Laptop Docking Station is a bit of a dark horse. As a dock to extend the your screens and provide more USB ports for connectivity, it truly fulfills its purpose without drama. But the power design decisions has left me scratching my head. It sets up a conundrum where I need to chew up another GPO (general power outlet) in order to fully utilise the Minisopuru, and even then I am crippled by USB-A 2.0 limitations at 2.5W. That will be a very slow charge for a modern phone, but sufficient for earbuds.

Additionally I am personally not a fan of the DC power adapter, my preference is to avoid these like they belong back to the 1990s.

Looking over these two points, if you use a docking station as a dock, then the device charging aspect is a non-event. The power delivery to the laptop though can still be a deal breaker for some.

The  Minisopuru 13-in-1 DisplayLink Laptop Docking Station is available from Amazon or direct for an RRP of AUD$347.00 although they are doing a tidy discount at the time of publish from the direct store. It is also worth noting that they do not stock the AU adapter so you will need to provide your own.

DRN would like to thank Minisopuru for supplying the review unit.

 

Specifications

Model number: DS808
2 DisplayPort+2 HDMI: Connect three monitors at 4K 60Hz. Note: HDMI and DisplayPort ports (display 3) can only pick one of two.
2 USB A 3.2 Gen1(only data):Can connect USBA devices such as USB flash drives to transfer data at a rate of 5Gbps
1x USB C 3.2 Gen1(only data):Can connect an external SSD to transfer data at a rate of 5Gbps (Note: USB C 3.2 Gen1 port does not support charging and video output)
2x USB 2.0(data and charging):Support 7.5W power to charge your phone or other devices and easily connect USB A devices like keyboard, mouse and more1 x USB-C
PD charging port: Charge your laptop with 100W output (Note: USB-C PD charging interface does not support data and video output)
1 x 3.5mm headphone/mic jack
1x Gigabit Ethernet
1 x 36W DC power adapter: Power the dock (Note: The Minisopuru docking station must connect the 36W DC power adapter to use, otherwise it will not work)
1 x USB-C To Host port: Connect your laptop, iPad or mobile phone etc.