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Accessory of the Week It’s less technically sophisticated than the Techne Byte-Dock port replicator we reviewed recently, but the Docking Station from Henge Docks is a darn site prettier and a lot less expensive.

Sold here in the UK by MobileFun, the Docking Station is available in several sizes to suit everything from the now-discontinued 13in plastic MacBook through to the latest 13-, 15- and 17in MacBook Pros. Prices start at £30 for the old MacBook version, but the Docking Station required for my 15in unibody MacBook Pro comes in at £80.

The pristine white Docking Station certainly looks more attractive than the hulking black lump of the £150 Byte-Dock, current on sale for £100. I’d have preferred it if the moulded plastic were a little more rugged and weighty – a 15in laptop turned up on its side doesn’t have a terribly stable centre of gravity – so it’s probably a good idea to keep it in a quiet corner where no one is likely to bump into it accidentally.

The lower cost of Henge’s offering is due to the fact that it lacks the pass-through ports of the Byte-Dock. Henge’s approach is simply to drill a bunch of holes into the base of the Docking Station so that you can insert whatever cables you need and just connect them directly to the ports on the MacBook itself.

That said, the dock comes with a set of screws that can be used to fix these cables permanently in place if you want to.

Henge thoughtfully includes a set of matching white wires with the Docking Station, including USB, Firewire, audio and Ethernet cables, as well as a little adaptor for the MacBook’s Magsafe power cable.

It’s certainly a more low-tech solution than the Byte-Dock approach, but the neat design of the Docking Station matches the minimalist aesthetic of the MacBook range and will certainly appeal to Apple laptop owners who use the laptop as their main computer at home or in the office. ®

Thanks to MobileFun for the review sample

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