I've been on a Macbook M1 Air for the last few years and wanted multiple screens, so I got a USB 3 hub (Dell D6000) which does DisplayLink. I had almost everything hooked in there, but still connected one screen direct via usb-c. Displaylink is good for an M1 as you can add loads of screens if you want, but you can't watch streaming services on them as MacOs thinks your screen is being 'watched'.
I did want a thunderbolt hub but as far as I could tell at the time Thunderbolt and Displaylink just didn't come in the same package, so I was stuck with two cables.
Three years on, I picked up an M4 machine that can do two external screens natively, great, I can reach my goal of only plugging one cable into my macbook. But the Dell can't do that on a Mac because of something or other meaning it would work as mirrored-only.
Time to grab an actual thunderbolt dock. I picked up an HP TB3 refurb (HP P5Q58AA) which was cheap (30 AUD) and seemed great on paper, only to find it needed a type of power adaptor I didn't have that put me back another 60 bucks, and when I got it all hooked up it didn't always work and couldn't support decent refresh rates on my monitors, with one always being stuck at 30Hz. There was a software update available, but for that you need a windows machine with a TB3 port, not something I have.
So then I grabbed a Kensington SD5750T, which was another 140 bucks, but I am pleased to report that it just works and supports dual 4k60 over thunderbolt/USB-C. There is no HDMI or Displayport on this thing, but my monitors both have USB-C in so... Unfortunately, now that I've read the article, I can also confirm it contains a Realtek 0x8153, and is an OEM'd 'goodway' dock.
I've been on a Macbook M1 Air for the last few years and wanted multiple screens, so I got a USB 3 hub (Dell D6000) which does DisplayLink. I had almost everything hooked in there, but still connected one screen direct via usb-c. Displaylink is good for an M1 as you can add loads of screens if you want, but you can't watch streaming services on them as MacOs thinks your screen is being 'watched'.
I did want a thunderbolt hub but as far as I could tell at the time Thunderbolt and Displaylink just didn't come in the same package, so I was stuck with two cables.
Three years on, I picked up an M4 machine that can do two external screens natively, great, I can reach my goal of only plugging one cable into my macbook. But the Dell can't do that on a Mac because of something or other meaning it would work as mirrored-only.
Time to grab an actual thunderbolt dock. I picked up an HP TB3 refurb (HP P5Q58AA) which was cheap (30 AUD) and seemed great on paper, only to find it needed a type of power adaptor I didn't have that put me back another 60 bucks, and when I got it all hooked up it didn't always work and couldn't support decent refresh rates on my monitors, with one always being stuck at 30Hz. There was a software update available, but for that you need a windows machine with a TB3 port, not something I have.
So then I grabbed a Kensington SD5750T, which was another 140 bucks, but I am pleased to report that it just works and supports dual 4k60 over thunderbolt/USB-C. There is no HDMI or Displayport on this thing, but my monitors both have USB-C in so... Unfortunately, now that I've read the article, I can also confirm it contains a Realtek 0x8153, and is an OEM'd 'goodway' dock.
Just as well I'm happy with wireless networking!