<img width="1024" height="768" src="https://www.pcworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/HiDock-H1-front.jpg?quality=50&strip=all&w=1024" alt="HiDock H1 front" data-hero decoding="async" fetchpriority="high"/>
Image: Heed Hachman / IDG
At a discover
Expert’s Ranking
Professionals
- A ton of functions for the price
- Very ravishing performance
- Great charging capabilities
- HiNotes app transcribes successfully
Cons
- No longer all functions declare what you’d seek files from
- Earpiece is a minute tinny and low
- HiNotes appears only to file by plot of the cell app
- HiNotes evolved functions are locked within the motivate of a paywall
Our Verdict
HiDock’s H1 is a daring strive at a USB-C dock that doubles as an AI-assisted speakerphone. There’s so a lot it does successfully, but it falls quick in key areas.
Heed When Reviewed$388.00
Easiest Costs As of late: HiDock H1
HiDock’s H1 USB-C dock represents a engaging departure (or is it an evolution?) some distance from most fresh docking stations. One of the important important fashioned connections on this USB-C dock feel nearly love an afterthought, in comparison to this dock’s ravishing cause: serving as an AI-powered speakerphone of kinds, with an associated provider for transcribing and summarizing calls. All of it feels fresh and unusual.
The difficulty is that this: The accompanying HiNotes transcription app is true an annoyance or two some distance from being the truth is the truth is useful. But HiDock has made the app a revenue play, and so a lot of the H1’s fee unravels in consequence. Aloof, for $279 there’s a lot right here — so it’s tough to merely forget this dock out of hand.
Additional reading: Ponder our roundup of the most reasonable USB-C dongles and docks to be taught about competing products.
That you can’t even symbolize the H1’s hardware as “true” a dock. The HiDock H1 consists of two linked devices, all tied to your computer by plot of a USB-C cable that’s about 1 meter long (39 inches) and transfers a rated 100W of energy. The important dock includes a big speaker, with volume controls, a noise-cancellation slider, and buttons to position and hold up calls. But there’s also a separate Bluetooth earpiece, tucked into a charging cradle which magnetically connects to the principle dock itself.
In some other case, the “dock” functions are barely well-liked. On the rear of the speaker are two HDMI 2.0 ports, two 10Gpbs USB ports (USB-A and USB-C), a 5Gbps USB-A port, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, a energy port. A 2nd 10Gbps USB-C port with 18W charging capabilities, and UHS-II rated microSD and SD card slots can be chanced on on the facet. All yet again, that’s so a lot.
On the facet of the HiDock H1 is a Bluetooth-pairing button (to connect a smartphone) as successfully as a USB-C charging port and SD/microSD slots.
On the facet of the HiDock H1 is a Bluetooth-pairing button (to connect a smartphone) as successfully as a USB-C charging port and SD/microSD slots.Heed Hachman / IDG
On the facet of the HiDock H1 is a Bluetooth-pairing button (to connect a smartphone) as successfully as a USB-C charging port and SD/microSD slots.Heed Hachman / IDG
Heed Hachman / IDG
With all that, you might per chance per chance well perhaps invent the argument that this dock deserved a Thunderbolt connection. It doesn’t, despite the indisputable truth that. The H1 affords USB-C with Direct Circulate Compression (DSC), that suggests that it will also merely give a boost to 2 shows at 4K resolution. On my default (11th-gen Core) computer, it delivered 4K on one level to at 30Hz, and 1440p on a 2nd at 60Hz. On a 2nd computer, with a 14th-gen Intel Core inner it, the dock powered two 4K shows at 60Hz apiece as anticipated. Sadly, docks with DSC skills inner salvage pleasure from well-liked, up-to-date hardware, and computer makers fabricate a woefully unhappy job of telling you if your computer will give a boost to the fashioned.
HiDock’s H1, then, is extra accurately in comparison against USB-C dongles and docks, but its price pushes upwards into the class of Thunderbolt docks.
The dock itself is a minute chunkier than you likely also can usually seek files from. With the earpiece cradle linked, the length of the dock is set 8.25 inches, and the depth is 3.5 inches. But the speaker, which aspects up at an perspective, pushes the height to 2.75 inches or so. That’s not a big deal in any respect, but it does mean that the dock also can merely not match beneath a level to. And at 1.15 kilos, this is a desktop arrangement.
The H1 works incandescent successfully as a standalone audio dock. The mono speaker (7W elephantine band driver, 5W tweeter) delivers daring, loud sound, with the amount dial linked to your computer’s volume controls. Tapping the amount dial pauses any audio streams you bear playing, and lights up a exiguous LED ring to alert you.