So today I'm going to be doing a quick unboxing of a Kensington notebook
docking station. I actually have no idea what a notebook docking station is
exactly uh in this context, but NCIX has
a bunch of these. And so I thought, what the hey, let's do an unboxing and see
what's going on inside the box. So the
first thing we find inside is an installation guide. And that could be
useful for someone like me who does Oh my goodness, look at this thing. For
someone like me who doesn't know exactly what a notebook docking station is good
for. Okay, it's about the size of a typical wall poster. So, uh that's in a
variety of different languages including English, Fron, Deutsch, uh Italian,
Spanish, as well as Dutch of all things.
Okay. And uh here we go. So, you install
software. Oh, it has drivers. Your life just got easier. No need to plug
multiple peripherals into your notebook every time you return to the desk.
Through one USB connection, the docking station connects you instantly to your
USB mouse, keyboard, printer, and other peripherals. As an added benefit,
placing your notebook on top of the docking station allows for better
cooling of your machine. So, it has uh some drivers. It has a little
instruction on how to use it with the USB 2.0 ports. So, let's have a look at
the docking station itself and see what
all of the fuss is about. So, first we
have drivers, uh, including drivers for Windows Vista. Remember, Windows Vista
drivers will work on Windows 7. And then we also have Windows XP drivers. So,
those are the supporting operating systems. Here we have what appears to be
a power adapter. I'm fairly certain I'm going to
find a power adapter inside. Yep. So, your typical uh wall wart style power
adapter. Nothing really to see here. And here is the docking station. So, we have
a USB A tob cable. So, this is going to plug into
your notebook. And this one is going to plug into the docking station. And then
we have the docking station. So, here I'm just going to
um find out how this baggie opens. Ah,
on this side. So, it's just tape closed
here. Okay. Okay, I'll be needing my knife for this cuz apparently that's um
very strong tape. So, here we go. So, what all is
going on with this guy? So, hold on. There's a warning on the front of it. Let's have a look at that first. If
Windows disables your notebook speakers upon installation of the docking
station, refer to the troubleshooting section of the user manual. Okay, so you
can see here on the back we've got a variety of different connections. So, it
looks like we have a LAN port. We have 1 2 3 4 five USB 2.0 ports. We have a
microphone port as well as a headphone jack. We also have a USB input as well
as our power input. Now, the bottom of the docking station uh has what appears
to be uh rubberized four rubberized
mounting feet. So, those are going to make it very difficult for it to slip
around if you have it positioned on the desk. And then it's got a couple of what
look like sort of clippy things here. So, if you have any insight into what
these guys are for, please do let me know. Uh, leave a comment under the
video and I'll definitely take a look at that. Cameraman is having a look at the
part number for whatever reason. So, this is the SD100. Maybe he's doing that
because I haven't actually mentioned it yet. On the top, you can see uh
actually, you know what? Here, cameraman, stare at this for a second. I'm going to go get a laptop. Don't
worry, it won't take as long as it sounds like it'll take.
Got it. Got a laptop. So here the way
this is positioned is so that you can put your laptop on it like this. So
here, cameraman, come have a look at the back. So basically all you do is you
take this USB cable and you plug it into one of the ports on your notebook. You
plug this in over here and then you get all of these interfaces as well as as
Kensington mentions, there's like the rubberized thing on the top here. So,
your laptop's not going to slip if you put it on here. So, that means that you
get a little bit of extra space under the notebook itself for more cooling.
Now, I've actually found in my own personal testing with notebook coolers
that it is just as effective to place the notebook on a hard surface versus
the carpet as it is to put a fan under it. So, uh, something like this will
probably be quite effective, and this was even on a gaming model at, uh,
keeping your notebook adequately cool when you are using it. So, thank you for
checking out my unboxing and first look at the Kensington, I think it was SD100,
was it SD100 notebook docking station.
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