// ZDNET — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
This Mac dock gives me lag-free dual displays with no sketchy drivers - for $150
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You rock up to a job with your MacBook to get some serious dual-display work done. You plug your computer into the dock on the desk, only to be given an option that's faced many Mac owners in recent years -- download and install a random driver, or live with a mirrored version of your MacBook on another display.
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Now, StarTech's "first-to-market" dual-display driverless USB4 dock is here to solve this problem … well, kinda.
Need a dock that offers more than a $50 unit, but don't want to spend $300 on a Thunderbolt dock? This device is the perfect middle ground.
The first thing to note is that the issue we're talking about is a MacOS problem (Windows users can gloat). The Mac platform lacks support for a DisplayPort protocol that Windows has had for over a decade. Called Multi-Stream Transport (MST), this protocol allows one video stream to be split and sent to multiple displays. Without MST, docks can only mirror the same image across every connected display. This is useful if you want a bigger screen, but not if you're looking for the productivity boost of a dual-display setup.
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