Plugable Universal Laptop Docking Station Dual HDMI Monitor for Windows and Mac (Driver Required), USB 3.0 or USB-C, 2X HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, Audio, 6 USB Ports (UD-3900)

I don’t normally write reviews because like everyone else on this planet I’m busy, between my graduate degree, work, and life in general, my spare time is valuable. However, I struggled for months trying to find the right combination of things for my specific situation and I am hoping this will help other people make an informed decision that they are happy with. After talking with tech people at work and in stores, and in addition to my own internet research I finally settled on the Plugable USB 3.0 Docking Station (Model UD-3900, Dual Monitor Docking Station).I’ve included my thoughts on the Plugable USB 3.0 Docking Station as well as some helpful hints that users who are not super computer savvy might find helpful (I will add, I’m not a super techy person myself).First, my thoughts on this product:It accomplishes my “wish list” without having to spend hundreds of dollars on a Docking Station.I have two computers – an older, personal computer (from around 2013/2014 time frame) that does not have a 4K screen and a brand new 2019 screaming machine that is provided by my job that does have a 4K screen. My home monitors are two 27” LG Class Full HD IPS LED with dual HDMI connections that I purchased around 2 years ago. This means that I am dealing with resolution differences across all of my equipment (I’m working with 3 generations of technology). Each computer has the following connections – 1 HDMI port (both computers), 3 USB ports (older computer - 1 USB 3.0 and 2 USB 2.0), 2 USB ports (newer computer – all USB 3.0) and 1 USB-C Port (newer computer).My wish list included the following:1. Connect and EXTEND my desktop display to my two 27” monitors.2. Keep a resolution that does not blow everything up to a size that is unusable (an issue when dealing with 4K and not 4K capable equipment)3. Plug one cord into my computer (rather than multiple)The Plugable USB 3.0 Docking Station does exactly this with minimal effort and without spending hundreds of dollars. I was really pleased when I plugged everything in and changed the display setting to extend and everything just worked. (As a note, I did tinker with the resolution settings on both computers to get my mouse to move screen to screen anywhere along the side borders – I did not observe a noticeable change in the image on my computer or on the monitors after doing this.) I was fortunate that all I had to do was plug and play and did not even have to restart either computer after plugging the unit in for the first time. The little informational booklet that comes with the product is actually pretty helpful if you know a little bit about what you are doing and want to accomplish, though it is brief and mostly contains pictures. There is also a web page and email address listed in the booklet if you need troubleshooting help. In short, if you have lots of cords that need to connect to your computer (for whatever reason), you don’t care if it charges your laptop, and you need two additional displays I would definitely recommend this docking station.Here are some things I learned along the way in regards to my specific situation. This is not meant to be a how to for all systems or set ups, just information that hopefully helps others. There is a lot of functionality in this little device way beyond what I have covered below - again, I'm not a really tech oriented person, a lot of what follows is laymen's terms.1. Calling this a “docking station” is a bit of a misnomer – a true docking station, when plugged into your laptop, will charge it (this product does not charge the device it is plugged into). True docking stations also have a multitude of other capabilities, including supporting more than 2 screens and device charging and will run you in the $200 - $400 range. I would dub this a “docking station Jr.”, some but not all of the capabilities of a true docking station. That being said, it does have the option to plug in an Ethernet cable to it, thus eliminating an additional cord attached to your computer (super convenient!). I’m all about fewer cords if possible and if you have to be hard wired into your internet this is definitely a plus.2. The order of the monitors (1, 2, 3) is as follows on the back of the Plugable USB 3.0 device (keep this in mind if you are picky about how your mouse will travel from one monitor to the next)a. Monitor 1 will always be the device you are duplicating or extending by defaultb. Monitor 2 will be the DVI portc. Monitor 3 will be the HDMI port3. Cables…there are so many choices and some are directional and some are not and some need adapters and some don’t and, and, and… jeepers cats batman why can’t this be more simple!!! Here’s what you need to know about your computer and monitors to make THIS PRODUCT work.a. Do you have a USB 3.0 Port on your computer? It will say SS (super speed) next to the port. Most new computers have at least one USB 3.0 port, some older computers, like mine have 1 USB 3.0 and 2 USB 2.0. I recommend using the USB 3.0 rather than the 2.0. The basic difference is in the speed of data transfer, but either should work according to the box. (I did not try using the USB 2.0 since I have a USB 3.0 available on both computers.)b. Does/do your monitor(s) have any of the following ports on the back – HDMI, DVI, D-SUB (also sometimes called VGA)? I don’t recommend using the D-SUB (VGA) port, it doesn’t support very good resolution and you may end up with a really grainy image on your screen, but in a pinch it functions exactly as it is designed to with an adapter to connect it to the docking station (the unit comes with a VGA to DVI adapter if you didn’t notice in the product description). You’ll need a DVI to DVI cable if you are going to use the adapter.c. IF YOU HAVE HDMI PORTS ON BOTH YOUR MONITORS - here are the cables you should buy:i. 1 HDMI to HDMI, spend a couple extra dollars and get a decent cable, my experience with cheap cables is they are well, cheap. The connection can be flaky and they just give up the ghost randomly leading to the purchase of, you guessed it, another cable.ii. 1 HDMI to DVI, again spend a couple extra dollars and get a good cable.d. You need to have at least one monitor with an available HDMI port for this docking station to work for TWO MONITORS. (Why, because of the type of connections available on the docking station and the way display data is designed to stream through the available connections on your devices – there’s a way more technological answer, but simply put 1 connection out on the docking station gets you 1 connection in for each monitor.)e. What direction should the cables be connected??? This relates specifically to the HDMI to DVI cable. The DVI side of the cable is the signal out; plug it into the docking station. The HDMI side of the cable is signal in; plug it into the monitor. You are moving the image from your computer/docking station (out) to the monitor (in).4. Duplicating a desktop vs extending a desktop:a. Duplicate means just that, whatever is on my desktop will be on my monitor(s), if I move my mouse on my desk top it moves on my monitor(s). Think meeting in a conference room where someone puts their computer screen up on the conference room monitor for everyone to see – duplicated.b. Extend means take my desktop and stretch it out across all three monitors. (Tricky, now you see where resolution problems can come into play.) For my set up my laptop is on the far right, monitor 2 is in the middle and monitor 3 is on the far left. This means that if my mouse starts on my laptop (far right) and I move to the left border my mouse will “exit” my laptop screen and “enter” my monitor 2 screen on the far right. The same will happen when I move from monitor 2 to monitor 3, and the reverse will happen when I move back towards my laptop screen.c. There a literally hundreds of YouTube videos on how to duplicate or extend your screen, simply look up “extend my computer screen” on YouTube to learn more.5. Resolution – tricky stuff if your equipment is all different like minea. Ever notice how when you go to arrange your screens in the order you want and some are pictured big and some are pictured small? This is because of the resolution that is set for each screen. This also means that you have to remember how you set up the order of your screens - where the borders touch in picture in the settings is the ONLY PLACE THE CURSOR CAN MOVE FROM SCREEN TO SCREEN.b. Normally the “recommended” resolution is sufficient. If you have a variety of equipment you may need to tinker with these settings. I don’t have a good step by step option because everyone’s equipment is different, all I can say is experiment; you can always change it back later. YouTube is another good resource for where settings are located and how to change them.c. If you want all of your screens to be the “same size” in the settings so your mouse can move from one screen to another at any point along the border you’ll want to set the resolution for each screen in the settings to the same thing. This might mess with how things look on your monitors and on your computer, again, tinker with it, you can always change it later if you don’t like it.Again, this is not meant as an official “how to guide”; I wanted to share some of the things I learned and clarify some terminology for those who are not super tech savvy. Hopefully this helps someone who is trying to decide if this product is the best option for their setup. Happy Computing!

I use multiple displays for work, and the docking station my company provided was a Thunderbolt 3 Gen 2. Every time I would either undock or restart my laptop, it was a fight to get the monitors to reconnect. My IT tech recommended this Plugable docking station, saying that he had the same issues and had switched to this one a couple years ago.My only complaint is that the instructions are a bit confusing. The website says plug and play for Windows but the instruction booklet that came with the dock says you have to download drivers. You do NOT have to download the drivers if you're using Windows. I downloaded the drivers and it asked for an Admin user name and password. In an effort to avoid reaching out to IT again, I decided to plug my external display in and just see what happened. The monitor connected immediately. I wish I had tried this dock years ago.

My desktop computer failed, and I replaced it with a ASUS T100 transformer (T100TAM-C1-GM). I was rethinking my computer use and wanted to try something different. The T100 is a 10.1 tablet with a quad core Baytrail processor, which docs to a keyboard and gives it the feel of a small laptop. The keyboard section has a USB3 port. When using the Transformer at my desk, I wanted to use my original system peripherals (17" monitor, keyboard, speaker systems, USB optical drive, gigabit network, printers, etc.), closely duplicating my previous desktop system but using the T100 Transformer as the engine. I discovered the Plugable UD-3900 in my research and it sounded perfect. All my desktop devices could be accessed through the USB3 port alone. Sounds great, and I have found this to work very well overall.There were a few glitches getting everything working. Soon after I ordered the device through Amazon, I received an email from Plugable directing me to a web page to download the latest DisplayLink driver so it would be ready to go when the device arrived, which I did. When I first set the docking station up with just the external display and keyboard, it seemed to work fine, but on rebooting my Transformer, the T100 screen display was completely scrambled, completely unusable, and I don't recall the external monitor working either. No amount of rebooting or unplugging would correct the problem. Fortunately, I had a microHDMI to VGA converter for my Transformer and I was able to get the external display working through that, even though the Transformer display remained scrambled. I had to manually delete the Transformer display driver, download and install the Intel Driver Update Utility, and use that to install an updated Intel graphics driver. That fixed the problem and I returned to the UD-3900 VGA adapter for my external display (whew!) and all was working perfectly.I did notice right off that the external display seemed a bit sluggish, and I suspected that might be connected with the Chrome web browser I was using. So, I looked in the Chrome advanced settings under the System heading and unchecked the option to continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed. With that change, the response became very snappy, just like on the native T100 display.One other time I again noticed the response in Chrome was sluggish. The mouse tracked slowly and web pages were slow. But, if I dragged the Chrome window to the T100 display, the response was very quick. I felt the DisplayLink driver was to blame. Oddly, a hard reboot didn't fix the problem. I tried a soft restart from the windows menu. This must have taken 5 to 10 minutes which was unusual and suggested there was indeed a driver glitch. When the computer finally restarted, everything was running fast again and I have not had issues since.So, the Plugable UD-3900 is working great and is exactly what I was hoping for. When the transformer is plugged in, I feel like I've got a typical desktop system. This has been an excellent purchase.One thing I would like to see different: to run my external powered speakers, I have to run a patch cable from the front of the Plugable station to the back of my external speakers. It works ok, but looks a bit messy. I would much rather like to see a sound jack out of the back of the Plugable station to make it look a little cleaner.11/19/16: Still using this with my T100 transformer and still working well, mostly. The one on-going glitch concerns the mouse and is almost assuredly a problem with the DisplayLink driver. Every so often, the mouse pointer will start randomly jumping around the screen with random mouse clicks, all by itself. No telling what those jumps and clicks can end up doing. To resolve it, I have to do a hard reboot using the physical on/off switch on the T100. Upon rebooting, the problem is fixed. It doesn't occur too often, but it's there. Still happy overall, though.

Functionality wise I was having some difficulties to connect my monitors but it seems okay now both with USB-C and USB-A. I been able to connect them now.Build quality seem okayMonitors support seems fine Mine was supposed to come with two HDMI but it came with only one and the other came with an HDMI adapter on DVI-d which also work which is okayIt is value for money wish it will be cheaper as in my case after I purchase not sure if I will use it fully. Enough port for me though