If you’re a laptop user that hooks it up to an external display when at home then you understand how convenient a dock can be. Popping your computer into a holster for a near-instant connection is much more efficient than connecting all of those cables up manually.
But there is generally an issue with how much desk space is taken up by a dock that lays across your desk horizontally, especially if you have limited space. The Henge Dock is a brilliant compromise that allows you to dock your computer vertically, saving you connection time and desk real-estate.
Henge was at Macworld this year showing off its newest models of dock for the MacBook Air 11″ and 13″ models. They look great and its clear that there has been a lot of thought into making them work well and visually compliment Apple’s best looking laptop.
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The dock contains a single USB and one Display Port connector that should allow you to hook up to the monitor of your choice. If it’s not a Mac compatible monitor you might need to adapt it to HDMI, but that goes for any potential external monitor.
There is no power connection as that is on the ‘up’ side of the machine when it is docked and Henge says that Apple will not license the Magsafe connector anyway. There is a small clip provided on the back of the dock to keep the power cable running down neatly though.
The vertical mounting really does save a ton of space and should even allow for you to tuck it behind a monitor if you have a tiny workspace. The white shell and solid rubber interior are seamless, with no exposed screws, something the Henge folks said was difficult but that they wanted to do to make sure it matched up aesthetically.
After launching in 2010, Henge hit some snags with its docking products over patent issues, but it has since cleared them up. The new dock has proved so popular that the initial orders have sold out but there is a pre-order option on the site.
We’ll try to get one of these in for a full review, but from our hands-on at the show we can say that they’re one of the better looking, better made and really intriguing Mac docks that we’ve seen. If you’re in the market, you could do worse than checking these out.
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