Macbook Air with PC-based dock?

Hi,

I have an excellent HP Thunderbolt dock G2 120W (that Paul reviewed a while back) that I use daily with a work-supplied HP Elitebook. Its plugged into all the usual things – headset, webcam, twin Dell monitors, ethernet, Microsoft keyboard & mouse.

My partner prefers Apple products, and is wondering whether a Macbook Air with thunderbolt port would successfully dock with everything on this setup? I’ve never used Macbooks at all, so could do with some guidance. And I suspect this is a fairly common scenario in lots of households where people are working from home.

Thanks for any advice.

 

Conversation 9 comments

  • Stabitha.Christie

    12 April, 2022 - 11:24 am

    <p>The M1 MBA only supports one display via thunderbolt so you won’t be able to use one of the display. Keyboard, mouse and ethernet should all be good. Webcam may be driver dependent. </p>

    • William Clark

      12 April, 2022 - 5:40 pm

      <p>You can connect multiple displays to a MBA M1. You need to use DisplayLink SW and have a compatible dock. </p><p><br></p><p>I am using a Wavlink dock with my MBA and my ASUS gaming PC. There is a way to run both while connected to the dock. I have used the Logitech Options SW with my keyboard and mouse to transfer control from the Mac to PC just by moving the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen. It’s actually pretty cool. </p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    12 April, 2022 - 12:09 pm

    <p>It just really depends on if there are drivers for everything. My guess is it would work except for the second monitor.</p>

  • ianbetteridge

    13 April, 2022 - 3:19 am

    <p>I haven’t used that specific Thunderbolt dock, but I use a CalDigit one with both MacBook Pro (Intel version) and a ThinkPad X1 Carbon with absolutely no issues. Everything works fine, with no driver installs required on either machine. However, one caveat is that I’m only using one monitor: I’ve never tried two.</p>

  • spacecamel

    Premium Member
    13 April, 2022 - 10:46 am

    <p>Apple has a pretty generous return policy. If it does not work, you can just return the MBA.</p>

    • Dan

      13 April, 2022 - 11:59 am

      <p>Better to return the dock and get one that works.</p>

    • lvthunder

      Premium Member
      13 April, 2022 - 12:19 pm

      <p>I bet his partner would not be happy doing that.</p>

  • phil_adcock

    14 April, 2022 - 7:43 am

    <p>Honestly variables on drivers are such a question in this the only way to know is to plug it in and see if it works. If you plug it in and everything works fine then you have a compatible dock. If you plug it in and nothing appears to be working, then you know the dock is compatible with that configuration.</p>

  • rodricks

    09 May, 2022 - 1:50 am

    <p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Apple has a pretty generous return policy. If it does not work, you can just return the MBA.</span></p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC