Do you use your 15″ Macbook as your primary computer and wish you had an attractive and useful way to expand its capabilities? How about the DeskBook Pro docking station from Zemno? It adds 7 USB ports, 3 Firewire 800 ports, 1 Firewire 400 port, 1 DVI output, 1 ESATA data, 1 ESATA powered port, Audio in/out port and a flash card reader. The DeskBook Pro also has 2 large slots called ModBays, that can accommodate hard drive modules or battery modules. The price for all this goodness doesn’t come cheap. If you want to add this to your Macbook, it’s going to run you $499.99 for the dock and extra for the ModBay modules. Who wants to buy me one for Christmas?
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This is a great concept (although I only have a 13″ MB Pro).
But Zemmo is missing out on one nuance that would make the thing REALLY great.
When I’m at my desk I hook up a 24-inch Apple Cinema Display to make MB Pro. Then, since that monitor is more than enough screen real estate, I put the MB Pro into a BookArc from TwelveSouth.
What this does is close up the MB and keep it vertically on a corner of my desk. Takes up no space at all!
If Zemmo could work with TwelveSouth to combine the two products, THAT would be a really big deal.
The other thing I would love to see in such a dock is extra RAM. I’ve always wanted some sort of RAM-box that would hold a ton of RAM. When I’m at my desk, I would plug in the RAM-box. The extra bulk added to the portable would not be important.
But when I go on the road, the RAM-box would stay home. My office partners could even use that extra RAM while I’m away.
I’ve had this idea for a RAM-box for over ten years. And have tried to get anyone in the business to listen to it.
Maybe someone here will think it’s a good idea.
@Sandee Those are some really great ideas!
Intriguing idea, looks like you have to connect with a USB 2.0 and FW800 cable from laptop. I always seem to have one or two too few USB ports.
I was looking at this on MacNN. How does the DVI connect? Is it being sent through the USB/FW800 instead of the minidisplay port on the macbook ? It would be better to see a picture of it with the plugs connected to the DeskBook Pro to see how many there are.
It’s elegant but I don’t see it as a big improvement of my daily work ritual of plugging in: power, FW800, ethernet, 2 x USB, minidisplay port and audio. A dock you can just drop into like the idea of the BookArc would be great.
Michael