Black Friday Thunderbolt dock deals: What to expect, early sales

Officially, Black Friday takes place on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023. Cyber Monday is the following Monday, or Nov. 27, 2023.

Early Black Friday sales have already begun at several retailers, though sales should ramp up as Black Friday nears. Retailers haven’t been shy about adding early sales to unload inventory before the Black Friday craziness begins.

Prices vary, naturally, but we saw prices range from about $160 to $220 or so during the October Prime Day sale on Thunderbolt docks. We’d hope for more of the same.

In 2023, you benefit from one key trend: Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 are roughly the same in terms of throughput and features. But retailers hate keeping old hardware on the shelves. It’s likely that you’ll still see substantial sales on older Thunderbolt 3 hardware, with lesser discounts applied to Thunderbolt 4 docking stations.

Consult your laptop’s manual. A Thunderbolt port may be labeled with a small lightning-bolt logo, but that icon can sometimes be used to signal that the port can be used for charging, too. If nothing else, a USB-C dongle/hub will always work with a USB-C port.

USB ports have been around for years. USB-C replaced USB-A (the square port) because USB-C was more versatile: The port connector was both reversible and allowed for higher speeds. USB-C ports can be rated for either 5Gbps or 10Gbps, just like a normal USB-A port. Some USB-C ports connect to a Thunderbolt chip inside your laptop, though, and this allows the port to run at a higher, 40Gbps speed. Physically, the connector looks exactly the same. It’s just what it can do that’s different.

Speed and features. A USB-C hub connects to a single 4K (or 1080p) display, and provides a mix of ports: USB-A, SD card slots, and so on. You can usually plug your laptop’s USB-C power cable (if it uses one) right into it.

A Thunderbolt dock supplies even more bandwidth for more ports. There are two key differences: It has enough bandwidth to drive a pair of 4K displays, and many docks come with their own power supply that can charge your laptop as well as your phone. All that occurs via the Thunderbolt cable that connects your laptop to the dock.

Yes and no. Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, and USB4 all run at 40Gbps across the same connector. USB4 is identical to Thunderbolt 4. But if your laptop runs USB4, it won’t “understand” Thunderbolt 3 protocols.

USB4 laptops are still rare, and have an AMD Ryzen chip inside.

Physically, they use the same USB-C cable. Functionally, they’re almost the same. Thunderbolt 4 was released almost as a patch to Thunderbolt 3, ensuring that everything worked properly. If your laptop has Thunderbolt, you should probably be able to buy either a Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 dock without any problems. Since Thunderbolt 3 is being phased out, you’ll probably find more discounts on the older Thunderbolt 3 hardware. (For the gory details, see our roundup of the best Thunderbolt docks.)

Possibly. Historically, the back of a desktop has been chock-full of I/O ports, especially DIY models that you build yourself. Desktops usually have extra room for internal SSDs, SD cards, and so on. However, if your desktop lacks these things, and includes an external Thunderbolt port, you can always add these additional components externally via Thunderbolt.

Read the user reviews closely. While Macs adopted Thunderbolt first, some of the Apple M1 silicon couldn’t keep up with Intel Thunderbolt controllers used by Windows PCs, and the Apple MacOS experience suffered as a result. If a Windows user complains, pay attention; otherwise, you can dismiss them.