OWC announces Thunderbolt 3 dock, adds 13 legacy ports to the new MacBook Pro

With the new 2016 MacBook Pro’s now officially announced and available to buy, OWC has announced its first Thunderbolt 3 dock, which features a total of 13 additional ports, including 5 USB-A ports, two additional Thunderbolt 3 ports (which could drive a pair of 4K displays), Ethernet, and an SD card reader.

Thanks to the high bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3, all of this expandability can be enabled by connecting a single Thunderbolt 3 USB-C cable to your new MacBook Pro (or any other computer with a Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port).

The dock offers two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports which operate at maximum transfer speeds of 40Gb/s. You can connect two 4K displays at 60Hz to the dock using these ports or three displays at lower resolutions by combining the Thunderbolt 3 ports with the mini DisplayPort. There are also five USB-A ports, making up for the absence of any USB-A ports on the new MacBook Pro itself. What’s even nicer is that two of these ports can also fast-charge an iPad and iPhone.

For those of you who still prefer a hard wired internet connection, there is also a Gigabit Ethernet port, a S/PDIF optical audio output, a SD card reader for getting your photos from your camera to your Mac (again making up for the removal of the SD card slot on the new MacBook Pros), a 3.5mm jack for headphones or mic input, and even a FireWire 800 port if you have some old [Mac] accessories that you just can’t live without.

The OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock is priced at $279 and comes bundled with a power supply and a 0.5m Thunderbolt 3 cable to connect it to the Mac. The dock is expected to start shipping in February 2017 but is available for pre-order now. We’re hoping to get one in for review, so we’ll keep you posted.