It may be expensive compared to other USB-C docks, but the Anker Prime TB5 Docking Station will be worth the outlay if you can make use of its blazing speeds and multiple connections.
For
Lots of ports
Almost as fast as direct connection
Good video options
Against
Heavy
Needs mains power
Expensive
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Thunderbolt 5 is a step forward in connectivity, but it comes with the issue that, if you’re using anything other than a Mac Studio, you don’t get many ports. Using the convenient, reversible, compact USB-C connector to charge, hook up external monitors and perhaps connect to a dongle that provides USB-A, card reading and Ethernet as well as reserving one port for a fast external SSD can become a bit of an organisational nightmare if you’re using the kind of computer that only has two ports.
Enter the Anker Prime Thunderbolt 5 dock, which connects to just one of your laptop’s TB5 ports, and breaks out a huge number of additional connectors. It’s large for a dock, though small compared to many other things you’ll keep on your desk, and requires its own power supply, but with its retro Apple look, I think it's potentially one of the best docks for a MacBook Pro or Air.
Key specifications
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Thunderbolt 5 upstream
1x 80Gbps, 140W PD 3.1
Thunderbolt 5 downstream
2x 80Gbps, 15W
Video
HDMI 2.1, DP 2.1
Rear USB
2x USB-A 10Gbps
Ethernet
2.5Gb
Front USB
1x USB-A 10Gbps, 2x USB-C 10Gbps
Card reader
SD and MicroSD, UHS-I, 104MBps
Wireless connectivity:
None
Dimensions:
11.6 x 11.6 x 7.5cm
Weight:
1.1kg
(Image credit: Future / Ian Evenden)
Design, build and display
Where many other USB and Thunderbolt docks take a wide and flat approach, Anker has chosen to make the Prime TB5 dock taller and slimmer. This leads to a smaller desk footprint and we found it just a millimetre or two too tall to fit under the screen of an iMac (a 2019 model, so things may have changed with more recent releases) without needing to put the Mac on a riser. It is also darker in colour than desktop Macs such as the Studio, but suits the darker colours of the Apple laptops and many Windows portables too. There's a blue light to illuminate the rim, though you can turn it off with the large button on the front.
Anker calls this a 14-in-1 dock, and if you count up all the ports on the outside, including the SD and MicroSD slots tucked away on the side, there are indeed 14 of them. The metal casing gives the dock a solidity that makes it clear this isn’t something meant to be thrown in your bag. The idea here is to connect your external monitors and peripherals, even your network cable, to the dock, then use a single cable to hook a laptop to it. This means you can pick up and go more easily, leaving the dock behind, and helps keep your workspace tidy too.
The dock itself is small but kind of chunky, the size of some mini PCs (the Xulu XR1 Max immediately comes to mind) or perhaps an Apple TV box. It’s not going to take up much space, and with the number of cables that will doubtless be sticking out of it that’s a good thing. It has some small rubber feet underneath to prevent it being dragged across the desk or falling over the back too easily, and there are some cooling vents on the edges.
• Chunky and solid • Stands taller than other docks
Design score: 4/5
(Image credit: Future / Ian Evenden)
Features
This dock is all about its ports, and there's a good selection on offer. Anker is very keen that you connect it up the right way, and as such ships the dock adorned with a sticker on it that underlines which ports are for connecting your computer, and which for screens and peripherals - information that is already printed on the dock itself, though in smaller writing.
Once you’ve got this worked out, the port layout makes a lot of sense apart from one thing: the location of the SD card slots. They’re on the left-hand side of the case as you look at it, and this means if you’re going to use them you’ll need to keep that side of the case free of obstructions. They would have been much better on the front, like the slot on the Mac Studio. There are four front-mounted ports, three 10Gbps USB ports (two C, one A) and a 3.5mm audio socket.
Then, round the back, there are another two 10Gbps USB-A ports, two Thunderbolt pass-throughs alongside the port that connects to your computer, a 2.5Gb Ethernet, and HDMI and DP video outputs, only one of which can be used at a time. The choice to place one of the downstream Thunderbolt ports beneath the Ethernet socket means that it is always going to be blocked by a cable if you’re wired into the network, which isn’t ideal, so it might be worth connecting a TB cable to this port permanently rather than scrabbling around trying to find it. Only a single TB cable is included in the box, which you’re very likely to use to connect the dock to your laptop (the TB port assigned to this task can supply 140W of charging), so an extra purchase will be required here if you need to use Thunderbolt pass-through. Power is supplied by a two-pin figure-of-eight cable, and there's no power brick to get stuck down the back of your desk.
And if you don’t have a Thunderbolt 5 laptop, Anker says you can use it with Thunderbolt 4 as well, though you might be able to pick something more suitable (but less future-proofed) for less cash.
• Lots of ports • Card readers a bit slow
Feature score: 4/5
(Image credit: Future / Ian Evenden)
Performance
The real test of the Anker Prime Thunderbolt 5 dock is whether it slows down Thunderbolt 5 peripherals connected to it. We plugged up the speedy LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt 5 SSD both directly to a Mac with TB5 and via the hub, and found that it was within a hair’s breadth of its directly connected speeds. In our original testing of the SSD, we saw read speeds of 6956.33 MB/s and write speeds of 5272.78 MB/s. When connected via the Anker Prime dock, it reported 6639 MB/s read and 4665MB/s write. So while there's clearly an overhead here that knocks the speed back a bit, it’s not very large at all.
Otherwise, it’s hard to trip up the dock as long as you abide by Anker’s rule about only using one of the non-Thunderbolt video outputs at once - you can run two screens from the Thunderbolt ports, however, and you’ll need to plug into these to use a pair of 6K screens or a single 8K display, though if you’re slumming it at 4K any output will do. You can also load it down with USB drives, cameras and even hang another USB hub from it, and it doesn’t seem to mind.
The front-facing USB-C ports can charge at 45W (shared between them), perfect for plugging your phone or tablet into, and it’s worth noting that the SD card reader is a 104MBps UHS-I model, so if your laptop has a built-in reader, it may be faster.
• Almost as fast as connecting directly • Lots of charging potential
Performance score: 4/5
(Image credit: Future / Ian Evenden)
Price
You can pick up a basic USB-C dock for about £50 that will give you video output, USB ports, Ethernet and even a card reader. It will be small enough to fit in a bag and won’t need to be plugged into the mains. However, it won’t get close to TB5 speeds, and the build quality will be suspect. That’s what you’re paying for here, at £399.99/$399.99: top speeds and a metal casing that turn your Thunderbolt 5 laptop into a true desktop replacement, and for some it will be worth it. Its price point is a little higher than some other TB5 docks, but not egregiously so, and it comes with some excellent features to make up for that.
Value score: 3/5
Who is it for?
• Hybrid workers
This is a dock for the laptop power user who has the latest kit and wants to use it at the best of its capability. You’ll need to have the computer equipment to use it - or intend to buy it in the near future - to make it a worthwhile purchase, but the way it allows a top-spec laptop to do double duty as a true desktop replacement and a portable machine will make it worth its weight in gold to some users.
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Anker Prime Thunderbolt 5 Docking Station score card
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Design:
Tall and chunky, looks good on a desk, but not portable.
4/5
Features:
Lots of ports, all of them fast.
4/5
Performance:
Excellent throughput speeds.
4/5
Value:
TB5 docks are expensive, so what were we expecting?
A good, if not perfect, dock that provides high-quality file transfer and three versatile display ports to enhance workflow and offer a variety of solutions to creative users.
The Rolls Royce of Thunderbolt 4 docking stations. You get 10 ports in total, plus passthrough charging and the ability to connect two 4K monitors at once, at 60fps.
Convenient, sleek, compact and well-equipped with ports, the HP USB-C Dock G5 is a great dock for port-poor laptops and multi-device desk setups for any professional.
The Verdict
8.5
out of 10
The Thunderbolt 5 Anker Prime TB5 docking station offers blazing speeds and multiple connections
It may be expensive compared to other USB-C docks, but the Anker Prime TB5 Docking Station will be worth the outlay if you can make use of its blazing speeds and multiple connections.
Ian Evenden has been a journalist for over 20 years, starting in the days of QuarkXpress 4 and Photoshop 5. He now mainly works in Creative Cloud and Google Docs, but can always find a use for a powerful laptop or two. When not sweating over page layout or photo editing, you can find him peering at the stars or growing vegetables.
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