The CalDigit TS4 is the Thunderbolt 4 dock to buy when one cable must carry a desk: 18 ports, 98W charging, dual 6K displays on Pro and Max Macs, and 2.5GbE networking. It adds only a net of one Thunderbolt port, has no HDMI socket, and carries a known sleep-wake network quirk. Check the current price on Amazon before deciding.
— THE VERDICT · JUDGEANY EDITORSCalDigit launched the Thunderbolt Station 4, or TS4, in early 2022 as the successor to the TS3 Plus, adding three ports for a total of 18 and moving from Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 4. This review pulls together CalDigit's own specifications, published hands-on reviews from Macworld, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider and Larry Jordan, and Amazon owner ratings. JudgeAny runs no test lab of its own, so every measurement and hands-on impression below belongs to one of those published sources, not to this site.
Ports: 18 of them, and the mix is the point
CalDigit counts 18 ports on the TS4, not including the power jack or the security slot, per Macworld. The tally is three Thunderbolt 4 ports (one host, two downstream), three USB-C and five USB-A ports all at 10 Gb/s, a DisplayPort 1.4 output, SD and microSD UHS-II card readers, a 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port, and three 3.5 mm audio jacks (a front combo jack plus rear audio in and out). One piece of arithmetic matters more than the headline count: because one Thunderbolt port on the laptop is occupied by the dock itself, the TS4 only adds a net of one Thunderbolt port, per Macworld. What it adds in bulk is everything else, including front-facing ports that 9to5Mac and AppleInsider both singled out as genuinely useful, from the dual card readers to the front USB-C port. The USB-C and USB-A data ports carry data only, per CalDigit, so displays must go through DisplayPort or a downstream Thunderbolt port.
Displays: two high-resolution screens, if the laptop allows it
A dock cannot add display outputs a laptop's own chip does not support, and the TS4 is no exception. Per CalDigit's Amazon listing, Windows users can run a single display up to 8K, while M1 to M4 Pro, Max and Ultra Macs can run dual displays up to 6K at 60 Hz, and base M1 to M3 Macs are limited to a single display by the host hardware. 9to5Mac reported the same split in its hands-on, noting up to 144 Hz at 4K and up to 240 Hz at 2560 x 1440 for higher-refresh monitors, and that macOS tops out at 6K at 60 Hz while Windows can reach 8K60 with Display Stream Compression and DisplayPort 1.4. The built-in DisplayPort 1.4 jack matters here, per Macworld, because it saves a Thunderbolt port and an adapter for most monitors. The one common gap is HDMI: there is no HDMI socket, per AppleInsider and iMore, so HDMI monitors need an active DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter or a Thunderbolt adapter.
Charging: 98W for the laptop, and a charging station when the laptop leaves
The TS4 ships with a 230W power supply and delivers up to 98W to the host laptop over the Thunderbolt host port, per CalDigit. Downstream Thunderbolt ports supply 15W each, the front USB-C port supplies 20W, and the remaining USB-C and USB-A ports supply 7.5W each, per Macworld. AppleInsider found the offline charging genuinely useful: the USB-C ports, the front USB-A port and two of the rear USB-A ports keep charging accessories while the host is powered down, and the front 20W port can run a MagSafe charger for iPhone at up to 15W. The limit is at the top end. 9to5Mac noted the TS4 cannot charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro at full speed, which needs Apple's 140W adapter, and Macworld's verdict rests on the same point: 98W covers most laptops well, but it is not the maximum a big 16-inch machine can take.
Speed and networking: faster than the laptop's own ports in one published test
Larry Jordan ran three speed tests per port against his M1 Pro MacBook Pro and averaged the results, finding the TS4 faster on every port he tested: USB-A writes 18% faster and reads 35% faster, USB-C writes 18% faster and reads 36% faster, and SD card writes 25% faster and reads 80% faster than the same ports on the laptop. On networking, his 2.5 GbE connection to a Synology server delivered large-file writes at 250 MB/s and reads at 170 MB/s, against about 115 MB/s over the 1 Gb connection he had used before. AppleInsider reported a related card-reader finding: the TS4's UHS-II slot supports the full 312 MB/s the standard allows, while the 16-inch MacBook Pro's own slot was capped at 250 MB/s in its testing. MacRumors, in its own TS4 review, likewise found the Ethernet port delivered the highest speeds it saw from its router even with the other ports nearly maxed out. All of these figures share one host link, though: every device on the dock shares the single 40 Gb/s Thunderbolt connection to the laptop, per CalDigit, so individual port ratings are not additive.
Design and daily use: a solid block that stands up or lies flat
The TS4 measures 141 x 42 x 113 mm and weighs 0.64 kg, per CalDigit, and it can stand vertically or lie horizontally, with rubber feet for the horizontal position, per 9to5Mac. iMore, which used the dock standing vertically, reported it never got too hot even with all ports in use, and that devices were recognized without delay. Macworld also noted CalDigit's Mac utility, which shows all connected drives and ejects them with one click, and which enables support for Apple's USB SuperDrive through the dock. The trade-off for the 230W supply is its size. iMore called the power brick bigger than its PC and monitor supplies combined, and 9to5Mac flagged the same bulky supply plus a front white LED that cannot be switched off, which it found annoying in a dark room.
The conflicting evidence, and why the verdict still holds
The published record is not one-directional. Larry Jordan's speed results sit next to his own sleep-wake problem: after his Mac woke from sleep, the dock's network connection sometimes did not wake with it, and CalDigit told him at the time that the Ethernet issue was being worked on for a future update, with shutting the Mac down rather than sleeping it as the workaround. iMore separately reported intermittent signal loss on a monitor connected through the TS4, while noting it could not pin the fault on the dock rather than a cable or the monitor. And Macworld's net-one-Thunderbolt-port arithmetic tempers the headline port count. The verdict survives because none of these findings undo the core claim. The speed and port findings come from the same reviewers who reported the sleep and signal quirks, and every one of them still recommended the dock for a laptop-based desk. A buyer who sleeps a Mac daily and leans on wired networking should know about the wake issue before buying, but it is a known quirk with a workaround, not a reason to dismiss an 18-port dock that reviewers kept using.
Who should buy it
Buy the TS4 if a Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 laptop anchors a busy desk: two displays, wired 2.5 GbE networking, fast card readers and a stack of peripherals over one cable, with 98W charging included. It suits photographers emptying UHS-II cards, editors moving files to a NAS, and anyone tired of a tangle of adapters. Skip it if the laptop lacks Thunderbolt 4 or USB4, if a base M-series Mac caps the desk at one external display anyway, if HDMI without an adapter is a must, or if a small fanless hub and a single monitor already cover the work. Owner ratings back the mainstream call: Amazon listing snapshots show around 4.2 stars across roughly 1,299 ratings for the TS4. Check the current price on Amazon before deciding.