Last time the M14t was on sale was late July - https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/554300
Various other docks on 35% off sale too, e.g. ThinkPad USB-C Gen 2 dock at around $168
Does anyone have a dock they could recommend that supports 2 4k monitors at 60hz or one 4k at 60hz and one 2k at 75hz? Ideally via a single USB C connection to the dock from a laptop which supports thunderbolt 3.
Seems like this model can only do a single 4k display (unless I read it wrong in which case forgive me)
DisplayPort over usb-c simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to achieve what you want. The Dell usb-c docks don’t even do a single 4K monitor at 60hz (they run at 30hz). Even though plugging a 4K usb-c monitor directly into the laptop works at 60hz.
To do that you’ll need a thunderbolt dock such as a Dell WD19TB or the Lenovo equivalent which should also do it.
A displaylink based dock suck as the Dell D6000 should also do that, but it relies on the CPU to encode the screen and send it out, which is complete non-starter for games, limiting for full-screen video at 4k, but reasonably usable for standard office work. These can be the only option to support such screens for people without thunderbolt.
Since this is ozbargain and the thunderbolt docks are expansive, many laptops support a cheaper way of achieving the video output. Plug one monitor directly into the USB-c port (with a converter if necessary) and one into the HDMI port that most laptops have. If the monitor can supply enough power to run the laptop as well then it is just one extra cable connection to save you a few hundred for the Thunderbolt dock.
Right, that's interesting, thanks for letting me know. Unfortunately, I don't have an HDMI port on my laptop but I think I might be able to "daisy chain" my two monitors (although I believe this might also cap the resolution/refresh rate). I might also look at getting a USB c to HDMI and testing that out. In terms of the Dell WD19TB - do you happen to know if this would be able to support a 2K monitor at 75 hz? Or would it just be max out at 60hz?
@Xcorched: Usb-c has enough bandwidth for a 2k monitor at 75hz. The plain WD19 can do two QHD at 60hz and might do slightly more. The WD19TB has plenty of bandwidth for pretty much any monitor combo you like, but I can’t guarantee what you will actually get.
I'm wondering whether the ThinkPad USB-C Gen 2 dock will support two 2K monitors, one at 60Hz and another at 75Hz?
They actually claim that dock can do two 4k monitors at 60hz. I’m not sure how they manage that, but If it is possible it would probably depend on the laptop being able to do DisplayPort 1.4 over the USB-C connector. I’m not sure if the current laptops can do that, but none of the Dells a couple of years ago seemed to.
It is really hard to tell what you would get, it sounds likely it could do what you want, but it is very hard to be sure particularly as the end result is a combination of what the monitors do, the dock itself, the laptop and the OS/drivers.
Student offer is the same price. Just got a quote from online live chat day before. Student email required. Need to ask for the best offer.