Belkin has just dropped eSATA support as well as the price tag of its Thunderbolt Express Dock. The price has been dropped back down to its original price of $299. Belkin’s Thunderbolt Express Dock was quietly introduced in September of 2011 and made an official debut as a prototype at CES 2012. However, in June of last year, the device was changed a bit and had its price raised by $100. Fortunately, Belkin has just announced that it will be bringing the price of the device down by dropping eSATA support.
If you’re unaware, Belkin’s Thunderbolt Express Dock is a Thunderbolt-powered laptop hub. The device offers three USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet jack as well as a FireWire 800 port. The device has two built-in Thunderbolt ports, one for upstream and one for downstream connections. This allows the user to daisy chain multiple Thunderbolt devices like monitors and hard drives together. The device has headphone and microphone jacks as well.
The main purpose of Belkin’s dock is to declutter desks. Instead of having multiple Thunderbolt to Ethernet and FireWire adapters around your desk, you can have just one dock that plugs into your Mac using a single cable. Plus, if you use a Thunderbolt display, you can daisy chain it to your Mac. You’ll be able to purchase a Thunderbolt Express Dock in ‘Q1 2013’.
