I’ve been using an M1 MacBook Pro since Mid-December, and generally I am very happy with it.
Since I need to hook up an external monitor (nothing fancy, 1920x1080 with HDMI), Ethernet and the occasional USB-2 or USB-3 periphery (hard drive, YubiKey, …), I bought an i-tec USB-C Metal Nano Docking Station to use as something like a docking station.
It works fine – most of the time. But strange things do happen:
- When I restart, the battery isn’t charged anymore, although the power cable is in the dock.
- When I wake my MacBook from sleep, the external monitor isn’t recognized anymore. I have to unplug and re-plug it into the docking station.
- The Ethernet connection doesn’t work after restarting.
So I end up having to unplug und re-plug all kinds of cables.
My question is: have you experienced things like this, too, with the adapters you are using? Did I just get a bad adapter? Do things work better with the original Apple adapters?
I would really like to find out more about this since I’m just planning to buy about 10 M1 MacBook Airs for my company (all to be used with external monitors while people are in the office), and I dread having to tell people to “unplug and re-plug this or that cable” five times a day. I also dread people not realizing that their battery isn’t being charged after a restart and then complaining about bad battery life.
Cheers,
Andy Lietz, Munich, Germany