CalDigit TS5 Plus review: A top-end dock stuffed with top-end ports

Best Prices Today: CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 5 Plus (TS5 Plus)

The first true superstar of the Thunderbolt dock world was the CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 3 (TS3), a compact Thunderbolt 3 powerhouse laptop docking station that beat the competition with superior high-end ports in an engaging metal shell.

After improvements with the TS3 Plus and the jump to Thunderbolt 4 with the TS4, we now arrive at the launch of the TS5 Plus, bringing in super-fast Thunderbolt 5 and a legion of top-end ports including 10Gb Ethernet and an incredible 330W power supply.

If you desire the ultimate in MacBook docking stations, the TS5 Plus has just about everything you need—indeed probably more than you need. CalDigit also sells a cutdown TS5 version with five fewer ports for those who don’t need to reach the summits of power and port specs.

Design

For the TS5 Plus, CalDigit has kept with the TS3 and TS4’s iconic gunmetal gray aluminum chassis with vented sides and top that has been a favorite for over a decade.

Most laptop docking stations sit either vertically or horizontally, but the TS5 Plus is happy in both orientations, although keeping the dock vertical means all those vents can help keep the dock’s innards cool.

Standing vertically, it measures 6.1 inches (15.5cm) high, 5 inches (12.8cm) deep, and 1.85 inches (4.7cm) wide. It weighs in at 2lbs (0.9kg).

The ports are well placed. The upstream Thunderbolt 5 port that connects to your laptop is at the back, unlike some rival docks that place it at the front, which increases cable mess in our opinion. Also, front facing are the two card readers and three USB ports including a 36W USB-C for iPhone or iPad Pro fast charging.

There is no power button on the TS5 Plus, just as there wasn’t on any of the older CalDigit docks. While we prefer the option to manually stop power going to the laptop battery during periods on non-use the dock works in the same way as Apple’s charger connected to a Mac—if it needs power it will take it. If it doesn’t need power it won’t give it.

The design is engineered to dissipate heat. If the top and sides were flat rather than ridged, the heat would not quickly disperse from the dock. The included rubber feet lift the dock from the desk when laid flat in a horizontal position allowing for air to flow under it. Some docks including fans to reduce heat, but these add noise, which is not ideal in music or video studio environments where pro users need absolute silence.

Specs and features

It’s remarkable that CalDigit has packed 20 ports—including ten USB—plus a security slot and power input into such a compact shell without having it look crowded or operate awkwardly. All 20 can be used simultaneously.

All the ports are clearly labeled, which is appreciated.

• One upstream Thunderbolt 5 port (80Gbps, 140W)
• Two downstream Thunderbolt 5 ports (80Gbps, 36W)
• Five USB-A ports (10Gbps, 7.5W)
• Four USB-C ports (10Gbps, 7.5W)
• One USB-C port (10Gbps, 36W)
• One DisplayPort 2.1
• Ethernet (10Gb)
• UHS-II SD card reader (312MBps)
• UHS-II microSD card reader (312MBps)
• 3.5mm combo audio jack (front)
• Two 3.5mm In/Out audio jacks (back)
• 330W power supply

As iconic and good-looking as the TS5 Plus is, docking stations are judged principally on the ports and features on offer to the connected laptop/desktop/iPad. The TS5 Plus delivers on every single one, and is so far unmatched by other Thunderbolt 5 docks. Of course, the volume of ports may be more than you need, and so you then might consider the fewer ports on the non-Plus version of the CalDigit TS5 or another of our recommendations of the best Thunderbolt docks for Mac.

This top-of-the-range Thunderbolt 5 dock has two more ports than the award-winning TS4—and both of these are welcome fast 10Gbps USB-C ports. In general, we can’t get enough USB-C ports and the five here are welcome. There are also five legacy USB-A ports. While these are also speedy at 10Gbps, I do wonder how many USB-A devices a power user requires these days.

If the dock was USB-C only and a user wanted to connect a USB-A device, using an adapter adds another potential layer of latency which for professional users can be an issue when using audio mixers and similar devices where they need a clean connection.

Pushing USB aside, the star of the show is of course the latest Thunderbolt 5 (TB5) data, video and power connection found on the latest Macs. For Mac users Thunderbolt 4 (TB4) was not a giant leap from Thunderbolt 3 (TB3), but the latest standard is a quantum one.

TB5 doubles data speeds from 40Gbps to bi-directional 80Gbps and up to 120Gbps in boost mode for higher display bandwidth, resulting in significantly faster data transfers between devices and your Mac.

If you need to connect high performance SSDs or RAID devices Thunderbolt 5 rewards you with a PCIe performance that is doubled to 64Gbps PCIe 4.0, and the dock supports transfer speeds up to 6,200MBps.

Super Power Station

Thunderbolt 5 has a mandated higher power delivery (to a connected laptop) of at least 140W (up from TB4’s minimum 100W) with support for up to 240W (vs 140W). The TS5 Plus can power a connected laptop at up to 140W, enough to fast-charge a top-end 16-inch MacBook Pro. To achieve this, make sure you use the included 1m TB5 cable.

This is the most powerful docking station we have ever tested, with a power supply pumping out up to 330W—a full 100W greater than the previous record holder, the same company’s TS4. Some competing docks boast plenty of powerful ports but often an inadequate external power supply.

With ample power at hand, the wattage going into the laptop need never fluctuate to accommodate other hungry devices.

Each of the USB ports offers 10Gbps data transfer and 7.5W of power except the front-facing 36W USB-C port. The two downstream Thunderbolt 5 ports also offer 36W—up from 15W on Thunderbolt 4. This is maybe the one port that is beaten by a competitor. One of our favorite TB5 docks, the Sonnet Echo 13 has one of its TB5 ports with a 60W rating. Its 180W power supply, though, is not up to providing both the 60W and the 140W PD to the laptop, let alone any power from the other USB ports. With 330W of power at its disposal, the TS5 Plus won’t run out of juice even when powering up to all possible 11 connected devices at full whack.

Broader bandwidth

From a bandwidth point of view, all the USB ports are rated at 10Gbps, alongside the 80Gbps Thunderbolt for the greatest data needs.

The TS5 Plus is the first dock with dual USB controllers, compared to others that feature a single USB controller shared by all the USB and Thunderbolt ports. There is one controller for the front ports, and one for the ports at the back of the dock for increased USB bandwidth. The dual controllers mean that the dock provides two separate 10Gbps controllers for increased bandwidth to connected devices.

Video options

For many laptop users, the main purpose of a docking station is to support the running of multiple external displays without using up all the MacBook’s own ports.

CalDigit has sacrificed the third downstream Thunderbolt port for a top-end DisplayPort 2.1 video connection. While Thunderbolt uses the same DisplayPort standards, some users prefer a dedicated video port and CalDigit has always helped them out in this regard.

A third TB5 port might offer more flexibility as it could be used with a USB-C to DisplayPort adapter cable if required with the same display support as DisplayPort but operate as a more adaptable port if not. The non-Plus CalDigit TS5 model does ditch DisplayPort for a third TB5 port. If you want to connect an HDMI monitor you will need a USB-C to HDMI adapter anyway or you could use a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter cable to make sure the DP port is not wasted.

CalDigit includes the DisplayPort instead of HDMI because it supports 4K displays at a 144Hz refresh rate on macOS, while a Mac specific limitation means no dock via HDMI can get above 4K at 75Hz. Most dock users will connect a monitor, and if there was an extra Thunderbolt 5 port it would get used by the monitor anyway. All mid to high-end displays have DisplayPort.

The non-Thunderbolt USB ports of the TS5 Plus won’t work as connectors to monitors. For that purpose, you’ll need to use one of the two downstream TB5 ports.

For one display you can use either the DisplayPort or one of the spare downstream Thunderbolt 5 ports.

Mac users on base M4, M1/M2/M3/M4 Pro, M1/M2/M3/M4 Max, M1/M2/M3 Ultra (and even Intel based Macs) can connect up to two displays. Base M1/M2/M3 based Macs are limited to just one external monitor due to Apple’s own imposed Thunderbolt limitations. You can get round this limitation with a DisplayLink dock, but the TS5 Plus is not one of these—see how to connect more than one monitor to an M1/M2 Mac for more details.

Depending on the display capabilities of your MacBook, the maximum resolution is 8K at a 60Hz refresh rate, with a possible refresh rate of 240Hz for 4K or 500Hz for 1080p HD. As mentioned, the above resolutions will depend on the host computer’s capabilities. For example, dual 8K 60Hz is only compatible on the M4 Max MacBook Pro right now.

Windows users benefit from that operating system supporting Multi-Stream Transport (MST) for DisplayPort and Thunderbolt, and so can connect to three displays using the TS5 Plus. The maximum resolution and refresh rate for a triple-display setup is 4K at 144Hz. Mac users desiring three or more displays will again need to consider a high-end DisplayLink dock such as the Plugable Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station (TBT-6950PD) or Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station with DisplayLink.

Storage

Some of our favored docking stations—such as the Sonnet Echo 13—include built-in SSD storage so that the dock itself operated like a very fast external disk drive.

The TS5 doesn’t have this feature but it does offer both SD and microSD card readers at the front for you to slip in and out your own portable storage cards.

This is an inexpensive way of boosting MacBook storage, which is expensive from Apple when configuring the laptop at the point of purchase. At the time of writing a 1TB microSD card was priced at under $100, although that was a 104MBps UHS-I speed card and the TS5 Plus’s readers support up to 312MBps UHS-II.

That’s faster than the 250MBps SDXC card slot built into Apple’s current MacBook Pro.

Network speeds

While most home and office networks are still rated at the standard 1Gb (Gigabit) Ethernet, more modern networks are much faster at 2.5Gb, 5Gb or even 10Gb speeds.

Recent pro docks are including a 2.5 gigabit Ethernet (2.5GbE) port as standard. The CalDigit TS5 Plus goes all the way to 10GbE. This is a great boon if your network is rated that fast, or at least a high level of future proofing for when it is. 10GbE is backwards compatible all the way back to Gigabit Ethernet.

The cut-down non-Plus TS5 comes with 2.5GbE.

Price

As the top-of-the-range Thunderbolt 5 docking station it’s unsurprisingly not the cheapest option in the relatively small pool of TB5 docks available right now.

It is priced at $499.99 in the US, £469.99 in the UK, and €469.99 in Europe.

In comparison, the Sonnet Echo 13 costs from $439, which includes an integrated 1TB SSD. The OWC Thunderbolt 5 Dock is even cheaper at $329.

However, neither the Sonnet nor OWC can match the CalDigit TS5 Plus on sheer number and speed of ports and highest level features. Mac power users who want the very premium end will probably not bat an eyelid at paying top dollar for the best.

This is borne out by the TS5 Plus selling out as soon as it was launched, and you may have to wait to purchase one until a greater number are produced.

A cheaper Thunderbolt 5 option is to consider a hub rather than a full dock. CalDigit offers its own Thunderbolt 5 Element Hub, with nine ports including four TB5, for $299 / £249. That gets you Thunderbolt 5 and some USB ports but no super-fast Ethernet, card readers, or the incredible power output that the TS5 Plus offers.

Should you buy an CalDigit TS5 Plus dock?

There isn’t a docking station available now that rivals the CalDigit TS5 Plus for number and quality of ports. Each one is rated as high as they go. Apple sells only one brand of Thunderbolt dock on its Store, and that’s CalDigit—so you know you are buying top quality.

Professionals and other power users demanding the very top-end will likely flock to this premium dock that will be at the top of its game for years to come, and even MacBook users owning a TB4 machine should consider this is their next dock upgrade.

Best Prices Today: CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 5 Plus (TS5 Plus)