Digital Home Thoughts: Belkin's Notebook Expansion Dock: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

The Belkin Notebook Expansion Dock is one of those products that, on paper, looks like the perfect blend of functionality and design. Via a single ExpressCard connection, this break out box offers DVI-based video up to 1600 x 1200 at 32-bit colour (a VGA port is also present), 5.1 surround sound, has five USB 2.0 ports, audio line in, digital (SPDIF) audio out, and a 100 mbps Ethernet port. You can drive the external monitor as your primary display or even use it as a secondary display for dual-monitor action. All this for $199 - it seemed like the perfect solution for my mother-in-law who was buying a new Vista-based Dell Inspiron laptop and was going to use it as a stationary desktop PC 95% of the time, but wanted the ability to easily disconnect it when she wanted a mobile computer. She ordered the Belkin Notebook Expansion Dock on my recommendation, because to me, it seemed like a great solution. What a horrible mistake that turned out to be.

Out of the box, the driver CD didn't support Vista. So I went to Belkin.com, clicked into their support section, and searched for the product by name. Zero results. I then tried browsing their support section by category, looking for any mention of the Notebook Expansion Dock. I found nothing. I gave up for the night and made a note to call Belkin in the morning. I thought I'd give their Web site one more try, so this time I just searched for the product marketing page via keyword. I found it, and realized that it was a Dell-only product for the moment and "coming soon" for everyone else. After digging around some more I found the software for Vista, curiously missing a version number.

The software install was bizarre - it prompted me to install four different un-signed drivers, all of which prompted the scary Windows warnings. Then Windows Defender warned me that there were seven start-up entries trying to add themselves into my system. At this point I think any average user would have become freaked out and the product would have gone back into the box. Why are companies so lazy about getting their drivers signed? Make it a good user experience. But as I'd discover, un-signed drivers would be the least of my problems with this piece of hardware.

After getting everything installed, I connected the dock and watched as it loaded up several task try icons and applications - in essence it loaded up a new sound card, a new video card, and a new Ethernet port. Connecting the expansion dock also de-activated WiFi on the laptop, and it did so in a very puzzling way. Even when I toggled the hardware connection off and on, the indicator light on the laptop would stay off, meaning WiFi wasn't functioning. Only a reboot managed to bring it back. Is this by design or a bug? I can't tell, but it's very possible that a user might only have WiFi access, so it's foolish for them to disable it with an override of the local Ethernet port.

Once I found the "high resolution" option on the menu, I tested out 1600 x 1200 @ 32 bit colour, the maximum resolution supported. The results were very disappointing: there was very obvious digital distortion and image degradation. 1280 x 1024 @ 32 bit colour looked fine however. When the software is set to "VGA Primary" (meaning the attached monitor is the primary monitor), my expectation is that it would de-activate the laptop screen and push 100% of the pixels to the attached monitor. Instead it made me jump through the hoops of configuring a secondary display. Easy for me, likely not so for most customers.

When I had it configured to only display on the external monitor, I noticed something very peculiar: Vista's Aero Glass effect was missing. I knew that laptop supported it, and when I disconnected the Belkin dock I saw Aero Glass on the laptop, but the Belkin product would not display it. There's no mention of this in the user manual, but after some searching I did discover a small mention at the bottom of the FAQ page:

"Please note: that the Windows Vista Aero interface is not supported by the High-Speed Docking Station due to a constraint imposed by the Windows Vista operating system."

It might very well be Microsoft's fault (for all I know), but if the dock is going to be offered as an accessory by Dell for Vista laptops, they should have a clear and prominent warning on the product page.

When I was trying to trouble-shoot the WiFi issue, I disconnected the card and then re-connected it. That's when I saw my first Vista crash: a blue screen of death. By default, Vista (like XP) will reboot after the memory dump, so I was unable to see what the crash actually was. After the BSOD when Vista came back up, it said it found new hardware and proceeded to install a driver for a "Microsoft ISATAP Adapter". At this point I had seen enough and I used the System Restore function on Vista to roll back the laptop prior to the Belkin Notebook Expansion Dock installation.

Given my long history of having problems with Belkin products, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this experience, but I had hoped they had upped their game and delivered a product worthy of working on Vista. I was wrong. Avoid this product completely.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He's always surprised at how bad Belkin products are.