When I use my laptop at home, I typically have it plugged into an exeternal keyboard, mouse, soundcard (yeah, thanks for that line in jack rather a microphone one Apple), monitor, webcam, speakers, mouse, iPhone sync cable, camera connection cable, printer/scanner. You get the idea. I'm really happy with the setup. I can take my laptop with me when I go away, or use it on the couch when I want to. But most of the time, it's just like having a desktop machine (which I think is more productive than a laptop).
However, even with having most of the accessories running off a single usb hub, I still have a few things to connect/disconnect each time I "dock" my machine. Power, monitor, usb hub, speakers. This isn't that much hassle, but it was often enough to deter me from taking my laptop out of the study and using it on the couch. Also, a tangle of cables coming off the side of your computer is never pretty.
So, since Apple doesn't make a docking station, (I do like something about the Dell my employer supplies!) I wound up getting myself a Henge Dock.
Firstly let me say, after having had it for a few weeks now, it works great! I love being able to yank the machine out of its dock and take it to the lounge room at the drop of a hat. When it comes time to return it to the study I just drop it into the dock and everything is connected, quick and simple. It just works, and I like it. The dock seems very well made, nice tight tolerances on all the mouldings, no visible mould lines, a rubberised strip on the base to keep it steady and stop any vibrations. However, there's a few small things about the product that could be improved.
Firstly, lets talk aesthetics. To my eyes it just doesn't look quite right. This is probably exacerbated in my case because I have a white macbook. The white of the henge dock is a different white to the macbook. I'm no colour expert, but I'd say the dock is a little more grey than the macbook. As in, it's a smudge darker and also a different colour tone. It also doesn't seem to have the same level of gloss, or that tiny hint of translucency that the macbook does. It's only a small thing, but enough that it doesn't look like part of the same product.
It's branded, and I dislike obvious branding. Written across the front of the dock in some godawful font is "HENGE DOCKS". It's very jarring, so much so that I'm considering masking and painting over it. On the side they've also put the henge dock symbol. I can understand that they want to get their branding out there, but I think the way this product is labelled would be hurting them more than helping.
As for usage, I've only got one minor gripe - you need two hands to undock it. One to hold the dock down, and the other to remove the laptop. I'm sure I could tape/screw/glue/clamp the dock down to alleviate this, but it's not ideal. How about having some sort of internal lever system which pops the laptop up off its connecting plugs, allowing you to then just pick the laptop up? This would allow you to do the undocking operation one handed. It sounds like a small thing, but if you've got a coffee/iPhone/child in one hand, then a one-handed undock would be brilliant.
Initial setup of the dock was a massive hassle. In theory it shouldn't be too bad, thread all the supplied extension cables that you want to use through the dock and plug them into your laptop. Put the laptop in the dock. Screw in the locking nuts to stop the cables from moving. However getting all of the plugs aligned correctly was harder than it should've been. This was in part complicated by the magsafe connector. Having the magnet snap the power connector into the laptop while I was trying to line up all the cables gave me a great deal of grief. Still, it only took about half an hour to set it up, which isn't so bad. Until you want to take the power supply away with you. Then its a hassle to set it all up again.
This is partly due to the "universal" nature of the henge dock - it comes with three little plastic sleeves for the magsafe connector, one for each type that Apple has made. So you wind up wrestling with the magnetised connector which wants to snap to the laptop whenever the two are close together, the little plastic shim which needs to stay in between the dock and the connector, all of the other cables that are in the dock, the dock itself, and the laptop. I would've needed about 6 hands to set things up easily. However, once it's been set up it works well. I think I'd rather buy a second power supply than have to go through that again though.
Apple probably has patents preventing this, but I'd love it if the dock came with a power extension cable (it comes with ones for the audio/usb/firewire/network ports, cudo Henge Docks) so you only need to do that cable setup once. Then if you're going away and want to take the power supply, you'd just pop the connector off the henge dock, the same way you'd pop it off your laptop.
For all that I've just spent a few paragraphs griping about the thing, I do like it. There's nothing else like it on the market for Apple laptops, and it does its job very well. I'd recommend it to anyone who's looking for a docking station for their MacBook. I just think that with a few tweaks it could be a brilliant product, and it's a shame not to see it live up to its full potential.
