Rating: - At this price it should come with a better cable
Others have commented on how short and stiff the cable is that comes with this, so I won't belabor the point much further except to point out something I haven't seen mentioned on here before that's closely related to the stiffness and length of the cable.
First, you have to understand that this has a "front" and "back" side, with the back being where you plug in the cables and the front having a couple of indicator lights on it with the cable coming out the left side (as shown in the photo). No big deal so far, right? Well, here's the problem, at least for the laptop I have: the expansion port on my laptop (a DV9000) is on the LEFT side of the computer, which means that one of three things must be true for me to use this docking station at all:
1) The laptop must be turned "backwards" (facing away from me) - or -
2) The docking station must be turned backwards (with the cables facing me and the indicator lights facing away from me) - or -
3) The short, thick cable must be bent at an unhealthy angle to be able to plug it in at all. At least one reviewer has apparently tried this with less-than-encouraging results.
In other words, having such a short, inflexible cable come out of the left side of the docking station is an extremely inappropriate design for a laptop with the expansion port on its left side.
I'm guessing that other HP laptop models have the expansion port on the right side or someone else would have complained about this before, but HP really should have splurged on a longer cable. Yes, this thing does work correctly once it's plugged in, but at these prices getting it plugged in should be a lot more convenient.
Rating: - HP Quickdock works as expected
Brought this for my HP DV2911 laptop to use in the office. It is connected to an external scanner, printer, network cable, mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers, and external hardisk. Worked perfectly from day one just like my old IBM and Toshiba docking stations. I now come to the office, take out my laptop and plug in one cable, hit the power button and I'm working. A nice bonus feature is I can use both the external monitor and laptop monitor together when I need to compare or edit 2 documents. Nice!
The unit doesn't come with a power supply, but it is also about 1/2 to 1/3 the price of a full docking station. I had to buy another power supply for home use. Also, I don't know if this is fully compatible with non HP laptops, but if you have an HP laptop, this is great.
Rating: - stop complaining about the powercord.
it would be nice if this had a powercord, but it doesnt. cope. ideally, one would have another power cord (available separately, or from a reliable HP alternative) to keep in your laptop bag when you left your desk, but not everyone needs one, and you can get those elsewhere. this marketing concept is called divisibility.
aside from that, this is an excellent piece of hardware. I might be wrong, but it seems as if my dv9000t runs cooler since i started running everything through my quickdoc. for most of the last year i have had...
the laptop power cord
2 external hard drives, both [USB2.0]
a wireless mouse charge cord [USB2.0]
a wireless mouse receiver [USB2.0]
a high resolution webcam / microphone [USB2.0]
1 VGA monitor cord
1 audio out (headphone)
1 LAN cord
all attached without any problem. it makes my desk much more sleek and accessible.
Rating: - Love it!
Very convenient! I have a TX1220US, a tablet (with a passive digitizer, but that's academic). I modified a LCD screen stand a while back to hold my tablet as if it were just an LCD. I occasionally stream movies through my laptop as well. This dock made things wonderfully simple, one cable connection and I'm off of the wi-fi network, on the LAN, connected to my entertainment center, keyboard and mouse at the ready.
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