Kensington SD100 Notebook Dock Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
915 words · ~4 min read
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So today I'm going to be doing a quick unboxing of a Kensington notebook
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docking station. I actually have no idea what a notebook docking station is
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exactly uh in this context, but NCIX has
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a bunch of these. And so I thought, what the hey, let's do an unboxing and see
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what's going on inside the box. So the
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first thing we find inside is an installation guide. And that could be
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useful for someone like me who does Oh my goodness, look at this thing. For
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someone like me who doesn't know exactly what a notebook docking station is good
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for. Okay, it's about the size of a typical wall poster. So, uh that's in a
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variety of different languages including English, Fron, Deutsch, uh Italian,
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Spanish, as well as Dutch of all things.
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Okay. And uh here we go. So, you install
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software. Oh, it has drivers. Your life just got easier. No need to plug
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multiple peripherals into your notebook every time you return to the desk.
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Through one USB connection, the docking station connects you instantly to your
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USB mouse, keyboard, printer, and other peripherals. As an added benefit,
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placing your notebook on top of the docking station allows for better
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cooling of your machine. So, it has uh some drivers. It has a little
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instruction on how to use it with the USB 2.0 ports. So, let's have a look at
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the docking station itself and see what
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all of the fuss is about. So, first we
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have drivers, uh, including drivers for Windows Vista. Remember, Windows Vista
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drivers will work on Windows 7. And then we also have Windows XP drivers. So,
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those are the supporting operating systems. Here we have what appears to be
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a power adapter. I'm fairly certain I'm going to
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find a power adapter inside. Yep. So, your typical uh wall wart style power
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adapter. Nothing really to see here. And here is the docking station. So, we have
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a USB A tob cable. So, this is going to plug into
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your notebook. And this one is going to plug into the docking station. And then
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we have the docking station. So, here I'm just going to
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um find out how this baggie opens. Ah,
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on this side. So, it's just tape closed
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here. Okay. Okay, I'll be needing my knife for this cuz apparently that's um
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very strong tape. So, here we go. So, what all is
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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
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Windows disables your notebook speakers upon installation of the docking
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station, refer to the troubleshooting section of the user manual. Okay, so you
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can see here on the back we've got a variety of different connections. So, it
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looks like we have a LAN port. We have 1 2 3 4 five USB 2.0 ports. We have a
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microphone port as well as a headphone jack. We also have a USB input as well
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as our power input. Now, the bottom of the docking station uh has what appears
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to be uh rubberized four rubberized
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mounting feet. So, those are going to make it very difficult for it to slip
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around if you have it positioned on the desk. And then it's got a couple of what
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look like sort of clippy things here. So, if you have any insight into what
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these guys are for, please do let me know. Uh, leave a comment under the
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video and I'll definitely take a look at that. Cameraman is having a look at the
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part number for whatever reason. So, this is the SD100. Maybe he's doing that
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because I haven't actually mentioned it yet. On the top, you can see uh
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actually, you know what? Here, cameraman, stare at this for a second. I'm going to go get a laptop. Don't
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worry, it won't take as long as it sounds like it'll take.
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Got it. Got a laptop. So here the way
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this is positioned is so that you can put your laptop on it like this. So
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here, cameraman, come have a look at the back. So basically all you do is you
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take this USB cable and you plug it into one of the ports on your notebook. You
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plug this in over here and then you get all of these interfaces as well as as
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Kensington mentions, there's like the rubberized thing on the top here. So,
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your laptop's not going to slip if you put it on here. So, that means that you
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get a little bit of extra space under the notebook itself for more cooling.
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Now, I've actually found in my own personal testing with notebook coolers
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that it is just as effective to place the notebook on a hard surface versus
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the carpet as it is to put a fan under it. So, uh, something like this will
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probably be quite effective, and this was even on a gaming model at, uh,
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keeping your notebook adequately cool when you are using it. So, thank you for
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checking out my unboxing and first look at the Kensington, I think it was SD100,
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was it SD100 notebook docking station.
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