OWC USB-C Travel Dock Gen 2 with 4K and 100W pass-through (review)

OWC USB-C Travel Dock Gen 2 has 4K@30fps and 100W pass-through upstream power making it an ideal travel companion for those with USB-C or Thunderbolt ports that need extra ports on the go.

It has 2 x USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 ports, 1 x HDMI 2.0 4K@30fps, an SD card reader and a USB-C upstream port. The dock has a nifty wraparound USB-C cable to the PC or Mac. It also works with Android smartphones and tablets.

OWC USB-C Travel Dock Gen 2 with 4K and 100W power pass-through

Note this is not the Gen 1 with 60W power pass-through

Website	Product Page
Price	$94.99 plus shipping $9.90
Distributed by	Macfixit
Warranty	2-years OWC and ACL warranty from Macfixit and authorised resellers
Country of origin	Taiwan
Company	OWC (Other World Computing Est 1988) is an American computer hardware company and online store for Mac upgrades and accessories.
More	Cybershack OWC news and reviews

First impression – very useful

Perhaps it is best to start by saying it is closer to a mini-dock than a dongle. Why?

The interface is USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps and Thunderbolt 3/4 compatible). It then shares that among the HDMI 2.0, 2 x USB-A (these are USB 3.1 Gen 1 5Gbps ports) and the SD card reader. It can take up to 100W USB PD chargers and uses 5W passing through 95W. Or it can use 5V/3A/15W drawn from the USB-C port (no pass-through).

So, if all you need is an external monitor, keyboard and mouse, this replaces far more expensive docks, and it is equally happy on Mac or PC.

Tests (With Microsoft Surface Pro 8 Thunderbolt 4 port)

• HDMI 2.0 4K@30fps – pass
• USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 (5Gbps – passes 500MBps using OWC Envoy Pro Elektron 1TB (review 9.5/10)
• Apple – works on 2021 Apple M1 MacBook
• SXDC – Supports SD, SDHC, and SDXC media cards. Compatible with UHS-II (Ultra High Speed). Can achieve speeds up to 156MB/s (SDHC) or 312MB/s (SDXC).
• Smartphones – supports Samsung DeX and smartphone mirroring

Cybershack view – OWC USB-C Travel Dock Gen 2 with 4K and 100W pass-through is for me

I have been using many low-cost dongles when travelling, but this outperforms them all. To be fair, its USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 and Thunderbolt compatibility put it ahead of all 3.1 Gen 1 dongles.