Customer Reviews

Docking Station with Digital Video Audio for Card Notebook

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I've read a lot of the reviews on this product, and others like it, and I've noticed a few things that i wanted to bring to your attention.

- Learn to download updated drivers. This will fix your problem alot of the time. Rarely should you use the driver that came in the box, because Microsoft patches mess things up a lot of the time.

- Please note that "WILL NOT WORK WITH VISTA!!!!!" may not be correct. This will work with the 32-bit version of vista, not the 64-bit. Go to control panel, system, and it should show you what version you have.

- Univseral docking stations with video are not designed for games/graphic etensive programs. IF your laptop has one available through the manufacture, buy that model for those features.

- On the whole docking stations aren't meant for plugging your laptop into your big screen to play games/movie. They are geared toward use with business applications primarily. Office for example. There are MUCH better solutions if your looking to display on your big screen.

-if you going to review a product keep in mind what its designed to do, not what you think it should do.

As for the quality of the product: those that are using it in the correct way say it works great. I actually sold one of these to another customer and they are very happy with the product.

Thanks,

I was really eager to get this product. Currently, I have to connect vga, usb (which provides ethernet), and digital sound. This dock promised to cut it all down to one connection, and let me take advantage of my LCD's DVI connector.

Unfortunately, the software is EXTREMELY buggy. I had the gigabit ethernet on the dock hooked up to my gigabit switch, but it would still only link at 100 mbps over half the time. the video out refused to go over 1024x768 unless i did an archaic combination of force quitting txexvga.exe, relaunching it, undocking/redocking, and rebooting the computer, and even then it was unreliable.

Worst off, about 10% of the time, the PCI-PCI bridge didn't load into the computer, connecting all the USB-based parts of the dock (through the USB bus on the expresscard slot) but leaving off the ethernet and the display.

needless to say, after about 4 days of this, i gave up and returned it. in the future, if some other guinea pigs find that the software has improved, i might reconsider buying it, but for now, stay away!

This docking station does not work with windows Vista! I downloaded the Vista compatible driver for the ACP60 from the Targus website. It will not install! I called the Targus tech support and it was a joke. I know as much as they do! Then the guy said that vista has 18 things you have to disable to make it work! I told them to email me the list. He said that there are too many versions of Vista to do that. I will probablly send it back too like the other guy wrote in his review.

I bought this for use with my Dell Latitude D830 (running Windows XP Pro SP2) and it has worked well for me. I use it with a monitor, speakers, keyboard and various USB accessories. It had a problem recognizing the docking station when booting, but there is a switch on the docking station and once I moved the switch to "On" it worked fine - something to do with the version of BIOS in the machine and it's explained in the user guide that came with the docking station. My only complaint is that the power cord for the docking station is too short. It was not long enough to hang down off my desk and reach my surge protector so I had to buy an extension cord for it. Other than that, the product has worked exactly as expected.

I have been using this dock for 7 months now and am relatively happy with it. 24" DVI monitor works very well, this is the main reason I purchased this dock. My computer is DVI compatible but only through an express card dock. Every once and a while when working in a program like AutoCAD or Illustrator that is a heavy resource user I will get lines across the monitor when I move the mouse but not constantly ( I have a powerfully computer and generally have 5 plus programs running at a time with no problems). My usb mouse is also working. The one thing I could not get to work is the scanner, when I hook up my scanner through the dock I receive the blue screen of death. However after researching this issue it is a known problem with almost all docks and KVM switches, so no biggie.

By no means is this dock perfect but if you need DVI through express card I would recommend it.

My system: Lenovo Y410, Vista Home Premium.
On a paper it looks like a dream product for my application: streaming Internet video to a full-screen big TV using Gigabit network.
I didn't even try to use drivers on included mini-CD (it tuned out they are from January 2007) - downloaded the latest from their site and ran Setup. Animation and background are nice, but that's the only nice thing one can say about their driver installation. Half way setup asks to insert ExpressCard but never recognizes it. I tried switch left and right, card only and assemled with actual station. Nada.
Installation also messed up USB support - it disappeared. Called Lenovo tech support and spent 1.5 hours getting USB back. After additional research I found out what happened: Targus installation disables USB devices and never rolls back its changes even it knows that installation failed.
As a last resort I tried to call their tech support - never seen or heard anything that bad: they don't even allow you to ask a question, keep non-stop saying to disable security features (and I did - anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, ...) and "if you have some more problems call us again and how else can we assist you?"

This product is not Vista Compatible. Upon contacting the manufacturer, I have been told that they have no intention of providing Vista drivers for the product.

Very Simple, Product didn't work and the tech support people from Targus were no help. They said they would send out a replacement componant but they never did. I will never purchase another product from them again.

I have a Sony VGN-CR123 laptop that I purchased this item for and it does not work at all. None of the features on this device work as advertised. After many hours of loading and reloading drivers and rebooting in many configurations, still nothing worked. As a result, Targus agreed to replace the device. However, the replacement was not the same product. They substituted an ACP51USZ which is a USB dock and not an ExpressCard dock. After 2 hours of driver updates and reboots, the replacement "sort of" works. Since it is a USB connection it is much slower than the ExpressCard would be and although their website claims gigabit ethernet, it only has 10/100 capability as stated in the manual. The video is so slow that it is useless. Targus is apparently in the wrong business because so far, none of their products have worked for me and their advertising is completely bogus. After spending hard earned money for an ExpressCard dock with digital video, gigabit ethernet, optical audio output and multiple USB ports, they expect me to accept this downgraded piece of junk. Quite a deal for them. I would recommend that anyone interested in a laptop dock not purchase from Targus. Products do not work as advertised. (They lied)

Adding multiple monitors to your work station has been proven to increase productivity. I was excited at the possibility of a docking station for my laptop that would add an external monitor.

This docking station quickly squelched my enthusiasm.

It just doesnt work and Targus support is unknowledgable and inattentive. The service agent wasn't even reading my troubleshooting emails, just pasting pre-written suggestions to similar problems.

It was suppose to work with XP 32-bit but does not.

Think twice before plunking down $200.