Accessories
Moshi symbus Review: Impressive USB C Dock for MacBook Pro
The Moshi symbus is a small USB C dock that lets you connect your Mac to a monitor and other accessories with a single connection to your Mac. The symbus works with the 12-inch MacBook, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and 15-inch MacBook Pro, and even charges your MacBook while you are using it.
Users will appreciate the $124.95 price of the Moshi symbus, which is about half the price of many docks, without cutting a ton of features. With this setup, you can quickly connect to a monitor, wired internet connection, hard drives and other USB accessories with a single connection to your MacBook. This is especially handy on the 12-inch MacBook and the 13-inch MacBook without TouchBar, which have limited USB C ports, but also quite convenient on Macs with more connections.
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With the Moshi symbus, users get the following connections, which let you connect to a range of devices with a single cord.
- HDMI port with 4K Support (4k @30hz, 1080P @60Hz)
- Gigabit Ethernet
- 2 USB A ports (the USB port most of your stuff uses)
- USB C Charging at 65W
One of the USB-A Ports does 2.1A fast charging to allow you to quickly charge your phone with that connection, but we mainly used it to connect to hard drives and other accessories that we need while at a desk. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack in the dock. That means we need to connect that directly to the MacBook Pro. This means one more thing to disconnect before we go mobile. It’s not a deal breaker, especially at this price, but it is something we would love to see included in a second generation version of this USB C dock.
We use the Moshi symbus to connect our 2016 MacBook Pro 15-inch to a 34-inch Ultrawide Monitor, various hard drives, card readers and accessories with a single cable. We connected our Monitor’s USB hub into the Moshi USB C dock so that we can connect other hard drives and accessories. This allows you to use more than just two USB devices with the MacBook and the symbus dock. We have two hard drives, a card reader and a webcam connected to it. Moshi offers a free USB C Dock utility on the Mac App Store that can automatically eject hard drives before you unplug so that you’re safely removing your storage before you go mobile.
One of the only downsides to using the symbus with the 15-inch MacBook Pro is that it charges slower than using the 87W MacBook Pro USB C adapter that ships with your MacBook. For the price, this is a compromise that many users will be willing to accept. It depends on how quickly you need to top your MacBook Pro off while using it. Most of the time when we connect at home we will be working there for hours. If we need to charge up faster, we can connect the Apple charger.
It’s a small dock that doesn’t take up much room on your desk. You could even mount it to the backside of a monitor using 3M strips if you want a super clean setup that hides your wires. The USB C cable to your MacBook is about two feet long and is not a cord you can replace. If you need a longer cord, you should be able to use an extension cable. The USB C dock looks very nice in a polished aluminum and there is a LED on the front that lets you know your charging status.
The Moshi symbus offers a lot of value for $124.95 and is a great fit for users who need to connect the MacBook and MacBook Pro to one monitor and a number of accessories. There are USB C docks with more ports and support for dual displays, but those are more expensive. For many users, the Moshi symbus is the perfect mix of ports, features, and price.
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