At a glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- High-quality housing
- Practical layout of the connections
- Fast memory card reader
- Fast interfaces also at the front
Cons
- Short TB4 cable
Our Verdict
Ugreen has done almost everything right with the Revodok Max 213, which boasts fast interfaces in a sensible layout packed inside a high-quality housing. It’s not cheap but it is at the top end in terms of features.
Best Prices Today: Ugreen Revodok Max 213 Thunderbolt 13-in-1 Docking Station
Ugreen packs everything a laptop user needs in terms of interfaces into the new Revodok Max 213 Thunderbolt 4 docking station. And the whole thing is housed in a stylish and high-quality metal casing.
Check out more options in our best Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 hubs and docking stations guide.
Features to dream about
- One upstream Thunderbolt 4 port (40Gbps, 98W)
- 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports (40Gbps, 15W)
- DisplayPort 1.4 port
- Four USB-A ports (2x 10Gbps; 2x 5Gbps)
- One USB-C port (10Gbps, 20W)
- 2.5Gb Ethernet
- UHS-II SD Card reader (320MBps)
- UHS-II MicroSD Card reader (320MBps)
- 3.5mm audio jack
- 180W power supply
There are 13 interfaces in total, sensibly distributed across the front and rear. On the front, there are two USB-A 3.2 and one USB-C 3.2 at 10Gbps each. There are also two memory card readers for micro SD and SD of the fast UHS-II SD4.0 version, as well as a 3.5mm audio socket for a headset. The rear accommodates two USB-A 3.0 ports with 5Gbps, a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, a DisplayPort 1.4 and three downstream 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 ports.
The 20W USB-C port on the front can fast-charge most phones, but the other USB ports are data only.
This connections are well distributed to connect hard drives or fast Thunderbolt 4 drives on the back, for example, as well as one or two monitors. Mobile SSD drives, an iPhone or iPad for charging and a headset for video conferencing or gaming can be connected at the front.
Dock tested
Windows laptops can host a single 8K/30Hz display from this dock.
Two monitors with 4K/60 Hertz are possible under macOS, provided the right Mac is connected. Apple sets the limit here, and the basic M1 and M2 Mac CPUs support only one external monitor. The plain M3 supports two monitors when closed. Only with the Pro and Max M processors can you get two external displays using a Mac.
A maximum of 90 watts is available for Power Delivery (PD) connection to the laptop. Unfortunately, Ugreen supplies a 0.8m Thunderbolt 4 cable. This makes flexibility unnecessarily complicated when setting up. To be fair, even a 1m cable is sometimes too short.
The memory card readers deliver a decent speed. We measured 220MBps when reading with a fast SDXC UHS-II V90 memory card from Angelbird. We measured an identical value for the smaller micro SD memory card reader with a Kingston Canvas React Plus. This puts the memory card reader in the same league as its docking station competitors and, as expected, lags somewhat behind the best external memory card readers.
We were particularly curious about a performance measurement with external drives on the Thunderbolt 4 and USB-C port. We measured the following values with Aja System Test Lite: with the Thunderbolt 3 SSD drive OWC Envoy Pro FX 1,267MBps for writing and 2,626MBps for reading. With the USB-C drive Lacie Rugged Mini SSD 606 MB/s write and 689 MB/s read. And the USB4 drive from Delock 2,427MBps write and 2,429MBps read.
As is usual with docking stations, the data transfer rate when writing is significantly lower than when connected directly to the Mac. For technical reasons, the OWC Thunderbolt 3 drive offers around 900MBps less. This is also noticeable with USB-C drives. With the Lacie USB-C drive, this is around 100MBps less when writing and around 200MBps less when reading.
This puts the Revodok Max in line with the competition. The measurement with the USB4 drive is interesting. Here we only measured around 200MBps lower values for writing and reading than directly on the Mac. This is almost negligible and clearly speaks in favour of using USB4.
We also measured the Revodok Max as a charging station. Here the docking station makes a good impression with 50% with an iPhone 15 , 27% with an iPad Pro and 37 per cent with a MacBook Air M1 . Measurements were taken after 30 minutes.
Should you buy the Ugreen Revodok Max 213 Thunderbolt 4 docking station?
Thunderbolt 4 makes it possible to integrate many connections into one docking station. The Revodok Max thus joins the now large selection. The high-quality metal housing, which can be set up in both portrait and landscape format, leaves an excellent impression.
The three fast and powerful charging ports on the front are a very positive feature. The performance data is standard on the market, and the Revodok Max does not stand out from the competition here, nor does the price. However, if you are looking for a docking station that perfectly matches the look of your MacBook, you will find it here.
This review originally appeared on Macwelt.
Best Prices Today: Ugreen Revodok Max 213 Thunderbolt 13-in-1 Docking Station
Author: Thomas Bergbold, Contributor, Tech Advisor
Thomas Bergbold is a freelancer for our German sister site Macwelt, for which he has written regularly since 2007. He has been an active Mac user since he came into contact with the Macintosh LC during his studies in the early 1990s. Through Performa and various Power Macintosh G3, G4 and G5, he remained loyal to the Macintosh as a media creator. The trained communications engineer has had a love for high-quality hi-fi devices and music reproduction since his school days. As a photographer and media professional in the creative industry, he relies on Apple products professionally and also enjoys passing on his knowledge in training courses.
