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Belkin Thunderbolt Hub

Thunderbolt has been around for two years now, and it withal has yet to proceeds much momentum. Available devices are nonetheless rare and expensive, while virtually PCs don't fifty-fifty ship with back up. Thunderbolt enthusiasts aren't giving upwards, though. With an upcoming speed increase to the spec and some exciting peripherals launching, information technology's articulate that Intel isn't content with Thunderbolt as a niche interface.

Intel is bumping Thunderbolt speeds from 10Gbps to 20Gbps — enough to carry 4K video signals. It'south no surprise to see Intel scrambling to keep its border as USB 3.0 makes its way towards 10Gbps. If inquiry goes equally planned, we might fifty-fifty encounter Thunderbolt speeds upwards of 50Gbps by 2015, but can the standard fifty-fifty survive that long? USB has both marketshare and mindshare, and there's not much Intel can do most that now.

Thunderbolt Logo Belkin announced an awesome Thunderbolt dock last year, and it's finally shipping. For $299, you lot can get your very own Thunderbolt Express Dock with a gigabit ethernet port, a FireWire 800 port, three USB 3.0 ports, a iii.5mm audio in, a three.5mm audio out, and an additional Thunderbolt port. Go on in heed, you're still going to need to spend at least $thirty a pop on half-meter Thunderbolt cables, so don't be surprised when you end up dropping closer to $400 to get this Thunderbolt hub fully operational. Despite its price, this is a cute and useful improver for whatever PC with a Thunderbolt port. It'south just besides bad that i neat peripheral is just well-nigh the most heady affair happening with Thunderbolt. Sadly, that's not going to exist enough to keep the interface adrift.

When Thunderbolt was first introduced back in 2011, everyone had high hopes. The thought of having a bulky plug-and-play external graphics card available for that tiny MacBook Air is incredibly enticing, but the reality is less compelling than the concept. We're at present years into the life of Thunderbolt, and it's notwithstanding nearly impossible to detect a working external GPU solution. Even external hard drives, the most obvious utilize case for Thunderbolt, are notwithstanding relatively difficult to find in stores.

The ecosystem and spec for Thunderbolt are both improving, but is it happening quickly enough to salve the interface from obscurity? Even though Intel and Apple tree take pushed so difficult to make information technology have off, it seems like we might exist seeing the FireWire situation play out all over over again. The game isn't over all the same, though. Every bit long as Intel keeps improving the speeds while driving the toll downwards, it might nonetheless take a chance. If Intel assumes that consumers will be paying $30-$50 for Thunderbolt cables in a year or 2, nosotros might every bit well beginning digging the grave right at present.

Now read: Why Thunderbolt is dead in the water