Accell Driver-Less USB-C 4K Dock Station Review

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

Those that bounce between platforms will enjoy the effortless and no driver capabilities that the Accell InstantView dock provides.

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For anyone that's ever set up a docking solution, you know how cumbersome it can be. After placing the dock and running power and data wires, you then have to sit down and hope driver installation goes well before you get your glorious display up and running.

Silicon Motion, mostly known for its work with SSDs, has been working behind the scenes to build a docking platform that doesn't need all of the additional setup. Accell is one of the first vendors to deploy this technology, known as Silicon Motion InstantView.

The Accell Driver-Less Dock is a USB-C solution offering a 10Gbps interface for connecting multiple monitors and additional storage and network connectivity via rear-mounted USB-A ports and RJ45 ports. Monitors can be connected to the built-in HDMI ports, which are labeled for resolution - one supporting 1080p and the other 4K.

The MSRP of the Accell Driver-Less Dock comes in at $189.99 with a one year warranty.

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The packaging is pretty simple, white box black lettering. We do have Accell branding along the bottom.

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The back does offer increased detail with port count and layout.

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The dock itself is offered on black, with a rather slim design.

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Connectivity includes three USB-A ports, all supporting 10Gbps devices followed by two HDMI and audio at the end.

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Included with the Driver Less Dock, we have the power adapter and USB-C and USB-A cables.

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The dock itself has onboard storage that offers users the ability to install a driver if they want further support for extended display.

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A quick test of the USB-A ports showed full support for Gen 2 storage solution with our Sabrent drive reaching 1017 MB/s read and 912 MB/s write.

I was able to connect my Samsung UJ59 to this dock during testing to check functionality. In my experience, InstantView worked without issue, in both 1080p and 4K resolution. That said, it is limited to mirrored mode only, and you do need a driver if you want to extend your desktop. However, the driver install is just a quick install and reboot.

Build quality is a bit "light" to the point I had to put a kettlebell on top of this unit so it would stay in place. In future revisions, it would be helpful to choose heavier build materials or add weight to the base internally. As for performance, gigabit ethernet performed flawlessly, and the USB-A ports brought in full 10Gbps performance with ease.

Pricing of the Driver-Less Dock at $189.99 is in-line with many competing solutions, none of which currently support InstantView. Value is undoubtedly quite high for users that switch between platforms often as this unit doesn't require any installation to push your machine a large format display.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula X570 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Carbide 275R (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Corsair MP600 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)