CALDIGIT THUNDERBOLT 5 ELEMENT 5 HUB: EASILY OUR TOP-RATED THUNDERBOLT 5 HUB/MINI DOCK

The CalDigit Element 5 Hub is the successor to the company’s award-winning Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub, replacing the Thunderbolt 4 (TB4) ports with the double-speed Thunderbolt 5 (TB5) and even squeezing in an extra USB port for good measure.

- BY SIMON JARY

Just as the CalDigit Element 4 Hub (fave.co/3XodgSY) was our recommended Thunderbolt 4 hub, the Element 5 takes over its position at the top of the Mac hub hierarchy.

SPECS AND FEATURES

> One upstream Thunderbolt 5 port (80Gbps/120Gbps, 90W)

> Three downstream Thunderbolt 5 ports (80Gbps, 15W)

> Two USB-C ports (10Gbps, 7.5W) Three USB-A ports (10Gbps, 7.5W)

180W power supply

The Element 5 Hub boasts five Thunderbolt 5 ports, each offering blisteringly fast 80Gbps data transfer and when utilizing Bandwidth Boost can provide up to 120Gbps bandwidth for display purposes.

The upstream TB5 port that connects to your computer can also deliver up to 90W of power to a laptop. That's enough to fast-charge the majority of Apple's MacBooks, although it won't fast-charge the top-end 14- or 16-inch Pro/Max MacBook Pro. For that you'll need a dock that can supply 140W. But 90W is still generous and enough for most laptop setups.

The downstream TB5 ports can each supply 15W of power, and the USB-C and USB-A ports have potential for 7.5W each. The external power supply provides a decent 180W—up from 150W with the Element 4—which is the same offered by even a full-scale docking station such as the Sonnet Echo 13 Thunderbolt 5 Dock. All the USB ports—two USB-C and three USB-A— are rated at a fast 10Gbps.

The Element 5 Hub has five Thunderbolt 5 ports.

Thunderbolt 5 is much more of an upgrade than Thunderbolt 4 was from Thunderbolt 3. It can provide up to 6,200MBps performance for external storage devices, for example, which is double that of Thunderbolt 4.