Anker 575 13-in-1 USB-C Docking Station

HDMI port has issues with display

one hdmi port has issue, and the front usb is super tight almost can not use

Transformed my desk setup

Transformed my desk setup — just one important caveat for Mac users.

This docking station has completely changed how my desk looks and feels. With just one cable, I went from a tangled mess of peripherals to a clean, minimal workspace. If desk organization matters to you, this hub is a game-changer.

The 13-in-1 port selection covers everything I need — display output, USB-A, USB-C, SD card, ethernet, and more. Performance has been reliable across the board, and the build quality feels solid and premium for the price.

That said, there is one important thing Mac users need to know before buying: dual monitor output does not work on macOS. This is an Apple limitation, not a flaw in the product itself — but I'll be honest, I didn't read the product description carefully enough and assumed it would work. I was caught off guard when it didn't.

If you're a Mac user planning to run two external displays, please double-check compatibility before purchasing. Windows users should have no issues.

Aside from that, I'm very happy with this purchase and would recommend it without hesitation to anyone who wants to clean up their desk and simplify their cable management.

Several connection options and it works flawlessly.

Single USB-C to the laptop gives my laptop a connection to two monitors, speakers, mouse, power, SD cards and USB drives. This cleaned up the physical desktop from several cords and cables. Connecting the laptop to the devices is much quicker. It's compatible with my Lenovo Idea pad 5 and my Dell Latitude 5530. Liked it enough to buy a second one so both of my home offices have one.

Dangerous

I tried with multiple computers but both just blue screen every time

0:04

Money well spent!

GREAT! The Anker 575 is an amazing product. Its size is much smaller than I anticipated. However, it is a high performing docking station. I connect my MacBook Air to my external monitor to edit photos, and the quality and speed to the display is amazing. It simultaneously charges my laptop, connects it to an external display and downloads the photos from my SD card without skipping a beat. It can get a little warm when having all three of these tasks going at once; however, it handles very well for long periods of time. It is very simple out of the box and very easy to set up. I recommend this for any students or photographers that are want to expand their work space.

Intermittent at best, had since Nov '24, keep having to reboot it to see monitors and periphs

so a little cable spaghetti, but on the right you can see the hub, connected front and back. I have had to power cycle the hub like every couple days. I cable tied up my setup and need a reliable docking/hub setup to maintain high speed connectivity and access to devices and monitors. This has not worked out. I like others have been a anker fan across a number of power/speaker/cable products, this is just not a solid product. Rarely write reviews but I am now shopping for a new hub.

J. Suarez

November 15, 2024

Glitchy and Under Powering

Okay, so I've been using the Anker 575 Docking Station for over a year (at least 3 days a week) so my impressions below are based on my experience. Before I got the docking station, I limited myself to working from my laptop. When I looked into getting dual monitors, I opted for the Anker station rather than purchasing a docking station from a big computer brand. In retrospect, I should have gone with a named computer brand rather than a company that up until then, I only knew as selling portable batteries. So here's the setup and equipment I have connected to the docking station: two monitors, a webcam, a usb dongle for wireless mouse and keyboard, and a desk light for my zoon meetings. I still have two usb slots and an HDMI input that I don't use. However, every time I turn on the docking station, its a gamble whether both my monitors will turn on. More often than not, only one monitor turns on, then I have to power off and on the docking station. In fact, it gets pretty annoying, especially when I'm late to a zoom meeting and I can't get the monitors to turn on. At first, I thought the problem was with the monitors, but I have since replaced them and still I experience the glitches. Today I finally confirmed that the issue is with the docking station, or the lack of power output it provides, even when not using all the inputs. I recently upgraded my desk lamp to dual web lights, one for each monitor, but every time I turned them on, they immediately turned back off. Then I tried manually turning one light on, and it worked just fine, but the minute I turned on the second light, both lights went off again (see pics). I then connected the lights to a separate USB connection and they worked just fine. This is when I realized the docking station is not providing sufficient power output to power the connected devices. Like I said, I don't even use all the connectors on the docking station, nor am I running some power hungry equipment. You would expect a docking station to be able to handle and power computer accessories like webcam, keyboard and mouse, monitors, and web light but it seems the Anker Docking station is really struggling to do so. I tried to save money by going with a slightly cheaper (but not that cheap) docking station rather than a known computer brand but in retrospect, I don't think the savings is worth the annoyance of using the Anker station. On a different note, I do like Anker batteries . . . guess I should have left the needed computer accessories to well known computer brands.

Stopped working couple of months into use

Stopped working couple months into use

Very flaky HDMI outputs

I really wanted to like this usb-c dock. It had the right selection of ports and outputs that not only works for me but felt a bit future proof. The compact vertical form factor was great for spacing saving and managing cable clutter. I was hoping to finally leave behind the quirks of the obsolete Dell TB-16 dock I've been using. Unfortunately I ran into new and even worse quirks.

The biggest issue is that using either HDMI port to drive a 4k monitor (Dell P2415Q) results in the screen randomly blacking out. Most of the time the screen comes back after a few seconds, but sometimes all of the display outputs will go dead until I power cycle the dock. I tried swapping out HDMI cables but same problem.

The second dock unfortunately had the same issues with HDMI, so now it's starting to seem like a design flaw. The thing is I can use the DisplayPort output using a DP1.2 to HDMI2.0 dongle to connect with the same HDMI cables and get a solid video output. The signal your computer is sending to the dock is DisplayPort, so internally the dock is converting DP1.2/1.4 to HDMI2.0, but it seems like whatever converter Anker is using is super flaky.

Had this been the only issue, I would have considered keeping the dock since I had a workaround, but as I kept using it a second issue became apparent. The SD and uSD card readers show up as phantom empty drives in Windows (see screenshot), even if nothing is plugged in. While at first glance this seems like a mild annoyance, I eventually noticed a bunch of error logs showing up in Event Viewer that corresponded to one of the drives:

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk3\DR3.

While each problem on its own wouldn't be a showstopper for me, the combination of issues makes me think this is a poorly designed and poorly built device that's not worth the price Anker is asking for.

Was sent a dusty product (used) with missing parts

Ordered new, arrived dusty open box, no usb-c. Tested with another usb-c on 3 separate devices and it did not work on any (mac, linux, windows).

Much better than those cheapies

I've been using those cheap "dongle" type of docks for a few years, and found they didn't last for more than 3-6 months, with random functionality failures, having to disconnect and reconnect multiple times. Eventually, they would just give up the ghost after being used daily.

This Anker device works much better, and doesn't have any of the same problems as the cheapies. No mismatched colors between monitors, ability to charge devices, and fewer cables connected to the laptop. Would buy again.

Went haywire after less than 10 hours of use.

First of all, the product packaging was damaged. No big deal as long as the as the product works. It did, just for less than 10 hours of use. Connected to the dock were my PC, computer speakers, mouse dongle and keyboard. I connected my iPad to the front port to charge it and the dock started to rapidly connect/disconnect from my PC. No matter what I attempted to do to troubleshoot it just maintained the annoying cycle of rapid connecting/disconnecting.

I called Anker to to see if there is a remedy to this situation and was told the item appears to be defective. I am returning the item and will try my luck with another brand.

Update (8/17/23): I have returned the Anker dock and since purchased TOBENONE USB C Docking Station and have been more than happy with it.

ANKER PRDOCUT MODEL NUMBER AND SERIAL NUMBER

Be careful while claiming for warranty with the Anker. One of my battery bank C type charging pin is not working and Anker is asking model number and serial number which are not at all legible. Even my this New 575 USB -C docking station is just bought on 05/18/0223 and Serial number and model number is not legible. If a 12 days old product Model and Serial numbers are not legible how come few months old produt's model numebr and serial number is possible to read?

Either ANKER must provide Model & Serial number of each prodcuts in the Invocie or in the eamil with the order.

Amazing piece of tech

Please note, I made this purchase for my work-from-home setup. This has not been tested with gaming.

This dock has been an absolute godsend for my workflow. I was stuck with a two monitor setup for the better part of two years. My work requires us to use multiple platforms to perform our day-to-day and this has been a life saver. There is no latency between all 3 monitors and its extremely easy to set up.

The ability to charge your laptop while running all your monitors, and other peripherals through the dock is huge. It makes your desk less cluttered and alot more clean.

10/10 would recommend to any work at home professional or even offices that may consider doing this for their companies enterprise-wide.

Adam Anderson

April 26, 2023

High quality, compact, fast ports, great design.

Just watch the video! This thing is awesome! Must-buy for desktop MacBook users.

2:42

This things is working super well so far

The mice was a little slow when plugged straight to it but I think I just need to figure that out. Internet connection is good, monitor connection is good and charging through usb c is working.

C Dow

February 2, 2022

Fantastic port replicator. Not an awesome dock.

Anker has a solid reputation, and this product is great at what it intends to be. Namely, adding ports to a laptop. I have 2x monitors, external speakers, USB headset, keyboard, mouse, Ethernet cable, and even a USB hub connected to this dock, and all of it works really well. I like that the Anker dock charges my laptop with 85W of charging, too. Honestly, for what it is, it's a great product. So why did I knock off a star, and say it's not a great dock?

A dock, based on my experience with laptop docks in IT Departments over the last 25 years, should allow you to connect the laptop, and use it like a desktop without needing to have the laptop open. It's different from a port replicator, which simply adds ports to a laptop that the laptop doesn't have built-in. A port replicator, even one as deluxe as this one, is not a dock.

The power button on this dock doesn't control the laptop...it merely turns off the dock! Why would I want to turn off a dock? To save electricity? To LOOK like it's a dock? The use of a power button seems to me to be Anker PRETENDING that this port replicator is really a dock. Anyone seeing that power button with any experience with OEM laptop docks will assume that power button controls the laptop. It does not.

I have to use this dock with my laptop open, so I can access the power button. If I then want to close the laptop, I have to disable the functionality that sleeps my laptop when the lid closes. When I'm not docked, I don't WANT this functionality disabled. The ability to just close my laptop, drop it in a bag, and go is now gone, if I want to use this dock as a dock.

The other reason I knocked a star off this review has to do with the included display connections. HDMI is handy for TVs, I know. But most of the monitors we have in the office have display port. Display Port makes a lot more sense for the computer industry. With a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter, you can use a cheap, non-externally-powered adapter to go from DP to HDMI. DP includes 3.3v power on pin 20 which can power any adapters, and they're nice and small. To convert from HDMI to DP, on the other hand, I need an active adapter, which is going to be externally powered. A simple cable is never going to do it. Since this is a LAPTOP COMPUTER dock, 2x display port connections makes a LOT more sense than 1x display port and 1x HDMI.

Overall, it's a great deluxe port replicator. Provides plenty of power over the USB-C laptop cable to charge my laptop. But it requires you to power on the laptop with the laptop power button, so the laptop has to be open, and to use this port replicator with the lid closed, you have to disable the close-lid-to-sleep functionality in Windows. So it's not a good dock. (And the inclusion of a power button feels like Anker is trying to trick folks into thinking this is an actual dock.) Finally, the inclusion of 1x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI will require the use of an active adapter to convert from HDMI to DisplayPort. 2x DisplayPort ports would have made more sense.

Flickering issue - however best customer service

It flickers many times and cuts off connection to all connected devices. I see it happening more when it is charging laptop. Otherwise it is a good docking station for a decent price.

Anker contacted after checking my review and replaced the faulty product. No issues with the new one. Very pleased with the customer service they provided.

Best docking station for Ryzen - 2k 144hz monitor

I searched and tried out probably eight different docking stations before I finally found one that worked well with a ryzen CPU. While the cheaper ones would somewhat work none of them would perform as seamlessly as this one. If you want a docking station that just simply works without issues between AMD or Intel thunderbolt computers as I swap between multiple laptops a day. My biggest gripe is when you push the power button on the docking station it doesn't wake up my laptop. Currently I run a 144 HZ 2K monitor and a 75 Hertz 1080p monitor with no issues or noticeable delay. Works great for productivity gaming and much more. 👍👍👍

Eh idk … maybe?

Not sure might return. When my laptop goes to sleep and my monitor turns of I have to toggle the docks power to get it to reconnect to the monitor. Also not sure why but my mic won’t work on my laptop with this dock I have to connect a physical mic into the dock. Lenovo yoga 2019

Works really well, make sure you have enough power if laptop draws > 85W

Had a few intermittent issues with a HP Zbook that needs a 150W power supply until I added an external power supply to give the energy hungry laptop what it needs. Once I had enough power to the laptop everything has worked perfectly. No issues on laptops that draw <=85W.

HoustonDG

April 18, 2021

A good docking solution!

The Anker Docking Station, PowerExpand 13-in-1 has been what I have been looking for. I wasn't so concerned about if it could power my laptop or not. I was looking at something to expand my USB ports and possibly connect a monitor in the future. I have other devices attached that require power, so I use the power features of the dock to supply a continuous source, rather than draw more from a non-powered USB port. It has more than fulfilled my needs.

Kevin Lim

March 7, 2021

Unstable Connection: Both Computer and USBs

I bought this few months ago but I regret buying this. The connection is very poor and unstable, so I have to restart both my computer and this hub. Also, sometimes this device even cannot detect my computer even though it is connected. It is just expensive, fancy-looking, but really low-quality hub. I am pretty disappointed with this and Anker.

P.S. Its USB part sucks as well. It always cannot detect my speaker-phone that is usually used for my Zoom teaching and meeting. It is a total disaster.

easy install and one USB C for everything.

I'm happy with this dock, one USB C wire connected to dual FHD monitor, ethernet, and charging the laptop at the same time also the spaces.

Overall, this is a good product and works with my HP Probook 440 G5 without problems.

A must for setting up a home office with your work laptop in 2020.

Powerful enough to keep my work laptop charged and enough ports to connect a real keyboard and dual monitor setup. Makes working from home almost as convenient as working from the office and really cleaned up the work side of my desk.

Very good quality, wish it supported dual monitor extended setup.

I bought this to turn my MacBook Pro into a dual monitor setup for my desk. I really wish it would allow two monitor extended instead of two monitors mirrored, but a single dongle fixed that, bad research on my part. If someone uses it for duel monitor make sure you turn on one at a time or else it will mess up the ratio. 9/10 would recommend, excellent quality, great brand.

Not really for Macs

We bought some of these docks for work because they were advertised as up to 3 monitors with the right resolution. We were quickly disappointed. When plugging more than one external display into a Mac via the Anker Dock, all it does is mirror the external displays, you cannot use multiple. Anker says this is a limitation of the Mac but other companies like Lenovo and Dell who make docks with DisplayLink don't seem to have any issues driving multiple monitors on a Mac with multiple desktops that are not mirror.

Anker seems to try to hide this flaw in a bunch of bloated sentences with numbers that might make your head spin. Some of the wording makes you believe you have have only 2 external monitors with a Mac and this dock and other suggest possibly only 1 if you are running HDMI 1.2 but thats just not the case. You can only run 1 period on a Mac.

However, Anker even uses a very very misleading image on this products page (see attached image) of a MacBook Pro being used to edit video on 2 external displays and the MacBook Pro itself. Each screen in the image shows a different image on the display suggesting you can have 2 external displays with a total of 3 different desktops and nothing mirrored.

Anker Supports solution... They'll send you a free 6ft USB-C to HDMI cable. Well thats great but there are USB-C Adapters out there for WELL under $200, even under $50, that you can just buy 2 of and drive 2 different displays just fine.

Save your money if you have a Mac and want to run dual external monitors without mirrored displays. Buy a Lenovo or Dell Dock that support DisplayPort, there are a few different model options that work... Google it first.

Small, Sleek & Simple

Was looking for a docking station to connect my new Lenovo Yoga c940 and my ASUS ROG Swift monitor that only has a single DisplayPort output. Worked like a charm, everything connected and displays perfect and the laptop charges as expected and without issue. Returned my first one b/c my laptop was getting really hot while charging, but turned out to be an issue with Lenovo Advantage's "Intelligent Cooling" feature and not the Anker. Changed the setting to "Battery Saver" and now runs quiet & cool. Highly recommend.

MOCTODNOZAMA

August 11, 2020

Perhaps not compatible with older computers and Chromebooks...

10/13/2020 UPDATE:

----------------------------

After trying another dock by Plugable, I stand by my original review 100%, the Anker dock is NOT ready for prime time. Or, it is, and you just need to have newer devices. Everything that did not work with the Anker, they all worked for me with the Plugable. Both the Anker and the Plugable are Vine products for me, so I have not rooting interest in either. This was my persona experience. This is the other dock that worked perfectly for me with all my devices...

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

--------------------------

I tried and tried, but it just didn't work for me. Perhaps you truly need newer tech? I contacted Anker to get some info. They told me I absolutely have to use a USB-C to USB-C cable. Which basically means, only newer pcs and laptops. I was connecting the dock to my windows laptop with a USB-C to USB-A cable. Anker says this is not sufficient power, but my laptop has it's own power source and the Anker has its own power source, and the HDMI goes from the Anker to the monitor. Why can't this work?

So in any case, the only USB-C powered "laptop" I have is my Google Pixel Slate. Again, the Anker is connected with its own power source, and since my slate has two usb-c ports, I gave power to the Slate independently instead of having the Anker dock be the sole source. Then the other USB-C port is then connected from the Slate to the Dock. From here, HDMI out from Dock to monitor.... drum roll.... still no dice. I tried two dell monitors, so I figure lets try a normal tv, and unfortunately, no picture there either.

Perhaps I just don't have the proper USB-C laptop or tablet that's compatible with this dock. Perhaps it's not compatible with the Pixel Slate since it's running on Chrome. I dunno... Perhaps there is a firmware update that can fix this? I went to Anker's site. Went to SUPPORT. Clicked on UPDATE FIRMWARE. I was given three choices... Cables, Audio or Hubs and Docks! This is getting exciting! Perhaps there is a firmware update! So I clicked on Hubs and Docks and downloaded the software for Windows. But when I ran the software, it turns out to be an updater for their Speakers. :( Anker told me perhaps it's defective, so we did a replacement to no avail, it still doesn't display for me. All the other ports work fine, just no display.

My computer gear is top of the line from about 5 yrs ago. One of which is a Vaio Canvas Z, but neither have USB-C. My only USB-C laptop is the Pixel Slate, but it's a chromebook. Maybe you need a recent windows laptop with USB-C? I would appreciate any info in the comments section. Anybody who got theirs to work with a PC that doesn't have USB-C, please comment below. If you got it to work with a Chromebook, please comment below. Please let me know what you did. For me, it's not displaying anything, but all the usb ports, card reader, ethernet work fine. I will update and revise my rating if I can get it to display. Otherwise, it's a nice looking dock, sleek and compact.

Great dock that looks nice!

Very happy with docking station.

The fit and finish looks sleek and is just slightly darker than my macbooks space gray finish.

Plenty on I/O Anas thoughtful placement of ports.

One thing to note is that although this has 2 HDMI ports, they are only capable of mirroring their resolution so you’ll need identical sized monitors in most applications for this to work well. I believe that this is a limitation of USB-C and not the dock.

It comes with a USB-C cable as well.