Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Today's notebook manufacturers are as good as the monkeys in Emei Mountain, obviously picking costs, but they call it the pursuit of lightweight, "lighten the burden" of technology products, and cut off all kinds of interfaces on lightweight books. As a result, users have to buy a computer, an extra docking station, a mouse and keyboard, an external monitor and a mobile hard disk, and all kinds of cables fight on their desks, which is always a mess.

This is good, if you want to participate in a small video conference, it will be even worse-- the docking port is not enough, and you have to connect a bunch of wires, such as power supplies, projectors, stereos, televisions, etc., plugging back and forth, and the operation is tedious, and it is really difficult not to set aside a little extra time to debug the equipment before the start of each meeting.

What's even more difficult is that, due to the lack of professional radio / camera equipment, there are often problems of loud and small voices and too much noise in every meeting, either inaudible or inaudible. if one day some big customer starts to doubt the professionalism of the company because of this bad video conference, and the cooperation fails, the loss will really outweigh the gain.

We have been wondering why there is no brand that can clean up the office desktop and make every video conference simple and efficient.

As a result, Logitech came!

Today we are going to evaluate Logitech's new product, Logitech Logi Dock 3-in-1 sound level conference docking station.

Worthy of the first PC peripherals factory out of the product, Logitech Logi Dock integrated audio, microphone, conference control, docking station, wireless Bluetooth connection and other functions in one.

On the personal desktop, it is a super dock and desktop stereo that can connect multiple devices; in the conference room, it is a plug and play, and the sound is excellent in the "conference control center".

First, the appearance of appreciation to open the box, not to mention the functionality, at first glance is very "advanced".

Different from the traditional "flat and narrow" docking station products, Logitech Logi Dock uses the shape of a square box, the design is very simple and versatile, the appearance is like a desktop-level Mini host, the size is about the same size as Apple Mac Mini, the whole machine is 942g, easy to move, and apply different office scenes.

The side of the Logi Dock fuselage is wrapped in dense fabric, and needless to say you can see that the acoustics must be excellent-because many advanced stereos are designed this way.

There are five touch buttons in the top area of the Logi Dock, which are used to turn on and off the microphone, adjust the volume, click to join, and switch the camera, each with a separate backlight.

There is also a hidden status indicator at the bottom of the fuselage, which is used to show the different working status of the equipment, such as the meeting is about to begin, the purple light flashes to remind you to join the meeting, and the status light in the middle of the meeting is displayed in white. when the microphone and camera are turned on / off, they will show red, know their status at any time, and switch in time according to the needs.

On the back is the interface area of the Logi Dock.

As shown in the figure below, it includes one USB-C uplink interface (with 100W power supply), two USB-C 3.1 Gen1 interfaces, two USB-A 3.1 Gen1 interfaces, one HDMI2.0 interface, one DP1.4 interface, and a Bluetooth pairing button.

On the left side of the Logi Dock, there is a separate USB-C 3.1 Gen1 interface that supports 7.5W charging.

There is no need to say the specific specifications of each interface. It will certainly be enough. Just see the figure below:

It is a bit of a pity that Logi Dock does not have lightning and does not support Type-C monitors, and it also lacks 3.5mm headphone jacks and RJ-45 cable interfaces, but it can also be achieved through converters, depending on whether the individual needs it.

In terms of accessories, in addition to the main body of the equipment, there is a huge power supply and a 1m-long USB-C cable to connect the laptop to the Logi Dock, as well as power up to 100W for the laptop.

The specification of the attached USB-C cable is simply tested. the measured results show that the cable has E-Marker chip, the highest charging power of 20V5A, the transmission specification of USB 3.2 / USB4 Gen2, and the highest transmission rate of 10Gbps / 20Gbps.

Desktop cleaning Master as the important interfaces of the Logi Dock are located on the back of the fuselage, when we put the Logi Dock on the personal desk, all the cables do not need to go around in front of your eyes, directly go to the back of the table to achieve hidden layout.

The author simply sets up his own personal office desktop, as shown in the figure, the notebook only needs a USB cable connected to the Logi Dock to realize the external monitor, mouse and keyboard. Therefore, even with so many external devices, the author's desktop is still quite refreshing.

Needless to say, 996 is motivated in the face of a desk like this.

The HDMI2.0 and DP1.4 display ports on the back of the Logi Dock both support up to 4K, that is, 3840x2160@60Hz monitor access.

The author connects with MacBook Pro through the interfaces of these two monitors of Logi Dock, first of all, the port of HDMI 2.0. after being connected, the current resolution of the display is 2160p and 24 bits, and the refresh rate is 60Hz:

Then connected through DP1.4, the current resolution of the monitor is 2160p, 30 bits, and the refresh rate is 60Hz:

This proves that both ports support video expansion up to 4K.

As a conference docking station product with strong business office attributes, Logitech Logi Dock is not only suitable for workers like the author, but also suitable for the boss's independent office.

Many executives like to have two monitors on one desk, but most of the time the docking station has only one monitor port, which is not enough.

Now with Logi Dock, this is not a problem-with the help of the HDMI2.0 and DP1.4 on the back, each can be connected to a monitor, while the laptop only needs to connect Logi Dock through USB-C, keep the desktop as clean as ever, and take the notebook away from work, just unplug the USB-C cable on the notebook.

The operation is simple and rough, without any cost of getting started.

Third, the repetition of the epidemic in the conference control center has forced the business of many companies to be transferred online, and past business visits have become small online video conferences.

But to tell you the truth, all the workers here must have suffered from all kinds of sudden problems in videoconferencing, such as--

Obviously, the equipment has been tested in advance, how come the other party can't hear himself at a meeting? Clearly determine the connection of all the wires, how to a critical time when a certain interface is missing a certain line? Obviously already.

In the face of one "Schrodinger video conference" after another, the leader does not want to hear your pale and powerless explanation, just like your girlfriend when you are angry, but it is a pity that the leader cannot coax and dare not coax.

Of course, with Logi Dock, this is not a problem.

First of all, Logi Dock has been adapted and optimized for mainstream video conferencing software, such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Tencent Conference, Nail, Flying Book and so on. These applications can be used in conjunction with Logi Dock.

Take Tencent Conference as an example. When the notebook is connected to Logi Dock and enters Tencent Conference, you can select Logi Dock in the "Select Speaker, microphone" option in the lower left corner of the application. At this time, Logi Dock will become the default speaker and microphone for Tencent meetings in the future.

Logi Dock built-in six beamforming microphones, frequency response reached 65Hz-8KHz, in the face of different layout styles of small meetings, can capture each user's voice, at the same time through noise reduction algorithm, so that the human voice appears more natural.

Through the Tencent Video meeting, we briefly tested the microphone radio effect of Logi Dock:

As the video shows, the four of us are located in different directions of Logi Dock, far and near, and Logi Dock can clearly record each person's voice, presenting a clearer voice to each other in a video conference, just like normal face-to-face communication.

In a video conference, you can also turn off the microphone, camera, etc. at any time through the button at the top of the Logi Dock, and the status light at the bottom of the Logi Dock will turn more obvious red. Avoid forgetting to turn off the microphone and saying something you shouldn't say at a critical moment.

There must be cameras for small video conferences, but the old 2-megapixel front-shooting on laptops is really not enough, and the video picture is often blurred and discolored because of light problems.

Therefore, you who often participate in video conferences must be without Logitech cameras.

For this test, the author matched the Logitech C1000E camera, a 4K webcam that supports HDR and Windows Hello, has auto-focus and 5x HD zoom, and can shoot 4K UHD video with 30 fps or 1080p HD video with 30 or 60 fps, which far exceeds the ability of the laptop to have a camera.

With Logi Dock, each video conference, the other party can not only hear clearly, but also see more clearly, so that your team can easily get professional audio and video effects.

If the hardware measures for video conferencing are in place, then the software experience must keep up.

To give users a more powerful meeting experience, Logi Dock can also be paired with Logitech's Logi Tune app.

Logi Tune

Through this application, you can set Logi Dock radio effects, speaker sound effects, or zoom zoom, color preset, color adjustment and other operations on Logitech C1000E camera.

Logi Tune also supports Office 365 and Google calendar synchronization.

For example, if you have a meeting one day, after synchronizing through Logi Tune, when the start time of the meeting is approaching, Logi Dock will remind you with a flashing light, click the circular button on the fuselage, and you can join the meeting with one click.

One click to join the meeting

Fourth, the desktop stereo work is too tired, listening to music to alleviate fatigue is also necessary. But the thin loudspeakers of mobile phones and computers can only listen to a sound. Logi Dock can be easily transformed into desktop audio, not only through Bluetooth and mobile phones, tablets, PC and other devices connected, but also through cables as external speakers for notebooks.

In terms of specifications, the Logi Dock is equipped with two custom 55mm neodymium magnet audio drive units and a passive radiation unit on each side to enhance the bass.

Compared with notebook speakers, this specification is more than enough.

As shown in the video, through Apple's MacBook Pro playing the same source of "Ferry", the Logi Dock's voice is obviously much stronger and more powerful, especially in the bass part. The low-frequency drum at the beginning of "Ferry" dives very deep, has a very obvious sense of extension, and is not boring. The middle and high frequency strings are also very clean and bright.

By contrast, Apple's MacBook Pro speakers are obviously much thinner and seem to have lost their power. although Apple's MacBook Pro speakers are good enough in notebook products, they are negligible in front of Logi Dock.

In addition to listening to music, Logi Dock can also make sure that everyone in the room can hear clearly in the video conference, without missing any key information.

Summary: to put it simply, this is a product that is very suitable for business executives or home office workers, as well as for small-scale audio and video conferencing in the conference room.

It is said that it is a docking station, but the integrated audio and conference functions make Logi Dock not only limited to docking station positioning, in the author's view, it is more appropriate to use the "universal desktop base" to describe this product, it can not only make the desktop cleaner, but also achieve quite convenient and efficient video conferencing.

As a user, all you have to do is "connect and turn on electricity", which is simply the "dream dock" of your efficient office.

Welfare time: in order to let more fans have the opportunity to experience this "dream dock", CTOnews.com and Logitech are fighting for several free trial opportunities.

If you are an enterprise IT department that wants to configure Logi Dock for the company's conference room or executive office, you are welcome to scan the code and simply fill out the questionnaire and apply to Logitech for a free trial of Logi Dock. After submission, you also have the opportunity to participate in the lottery to win Logitech MX ANYWHERE3 commercial wireless mouse, Logitech K845 mechanical keyboard, the winning rate is super high, come and participate!

The event will take place from September 28 to October 7. Remember to follow Logitech's official account after scanning the code, and you will jump out of the questionnaire and lucky draw.

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