So recently my parents surprised me with a early birthday gift. Cause for those of you who don’t know I got rid of my desktop and got a new Surface Pro 3, so they surprised me with a few things for my surface. So expect a review on the other products soon.

The new Surface Dock or Block as I like to call it, is a docking station/travel station for the Surface Pro 3 and 4 and the Surface Book. The dock comes with 2 mini display ports, a gigabit ethernet port and FOUR USB 3 ports. This thing is very very tiny. It is smaller than most power bricks you see on laptops or even the surface itself. At first when I saw it connected through the charging block. I thought to myself “pssh” it isn’t that easy to use. but it is. I set up the charging station, hid it so I couldn’t see any cords and then connected it to my Surface Pro 3 and all of my hard drives and devices showed up without incident. I was quite surprised.

Overall stripping down from a desktop to a Surface and a docking station definitely makes my work desk feel a lot more freeing and less cluttered. I definitely do like what Microsoft has done cause the original surface docks were not travel ready and didn’t have as many ports as this one does.

But there are a few downsides to this Surface Dock, it will cost you a pretty penny. Costing in at $199.99 is a lot for just a small brick that has a few ports. Now I know they are going for travel size but 200 dollars for this? It does feel a wee little overpriced. Another downside I have noticed after using this a few times, is that it will keep your devices that are plugged into it on. So like if you have a portable hard drive or a mouse, it will stay powered even if you do not have your Surface connected. Now this can be a problem if you are trying to sleep and you hear the humming sound from everything charging and staying on. And probably my biggest double edge sword, is I know with most devices you have to eject them from the computer you are using to avoid basically damaging them especially portable hard drives. Now this doesn’t come with that option and if you disconnect the Surface from the dock…I wonder what happens to the devices that are plugged in. Does it damage them? I haven’t seen this happen yet but I am still cautious about my portable hard drives I use.

Anyways, I hope my thoughts on the Surface Dock helps you decide between this one or a regular dock. The device is solid and has a whole lot of ports but I feel the price will turn people away.

Source: The Microsoft Store