Thinkpad Essential Port Repl

According to the seller, this docking station/port replicator is compatible with the following:

* T Series: T60, T61, T60p, T61p, T400 (but NOT with T400S), T500
* R Series: R60, R61, R400, R500
* Z Series: Z60, Z61, Z60m, Z60t, Z61m, Z61t
* Other: W500, SL500

Non Compatible Thinkpads include:
T410, T510, W410, W510, W700, T400S

I can only testify that it works with my T400.

I am not so sure if it's technically correct to call 'port replicator' something that actually adds ports to your laptop but it doesn't really matter. A name is just a name for as long as we know what we are about to get before we buy. Since this replaces an older, full featured docking station, let me begin by listing what this unit does NOT have.

- Lock (and keys) - all you have is the button that you push to detach your laptop from the dock.
- DVI - the only 'monitor' port available is the 'blue' analog video port. I haven't tried it myself but you should still be able to use two attached monitors because you have 2 VGA ports available, one on the laptop and the other on the dock.
- Microphone line-in (green) and Headphones line-out (red) analog ports - on my T400 this is still okay because the laptop has them in the front.
- Old parallel (printer) port - if you need to attach some 20th century dot matrix to it, you can't because the serial port is missing too.
- Old serial (printer, modem) port - not included either.

The ports that you do get are:

- 4 powered USB ports - my T400 has 7 USB ports now because the laptop's 3 are still available.
- Ethernet
- Phone
- VGA (blue)
- Round keyboard interface

WARNING: do NOT assume that you are getting a power supply with this order because you don't. If you need one, you'll have to order one separately but whatever you used with your undocked laptop should work with the docking station too.

The main advantage of this docking station should be the price. To the extent that you don't care about 'locking' your laptop to it and you don't connect your monitor through DVI, everything is still there.

On balance, the lower price and eliminating the legacy (parallel, serial) port clutter should compensate the lack of DVI which I am not using. I also relying on USB for my audio devices so I don't miss the red and green round connectors in the back (still have them in the front of my T400). The lack of keys is a plus to me because I bought this for my home office. Overall, it's a 5 stars.

Oh, one more thing. The unit that I received does have the red/green/blue IBM logo on it. It appeared to be brand new and came well wrapped and packaged.

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One plug for the reseller because anyone who respects his customers gets my respect. I was quite confident that I was ordering the right part so I did not attempt to contact the seller before placing my order but, to my surprise, the seller emailed me, asking me to make sure that I ordered the right part and provided the list of compatible laptops (see above). He even advised me to refuse delivery if I ordered the wrong docking station by mistake. I don't think I can mention the seller's name in the body of the review but I'll add it as a comment to it.

We got this product, first of all, the picture showed an IBM logo (like the one in my laptop), but i received the new Thinkpad logo from Lenovo, mmm... sad for those who loved the colored ibm logo like me... sometimes one of the usb ports don't recognize my ibm mouse... sad also! be carefull when you buy products based on the picture, sometimes it doesn't reflect the final product you are going to receive!