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Thunderbolt expansion docks have been as elusive as Bigfoot, despite several companies actually showing off prototypes at last year’s CES event, but one of them is finally inching closer to reality at this year’s show.
MacRumors is reporting that Belkin’s Thunderbolt Express Dock has made another appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show, a year after making its public debut at the 2012 event. Unfortunately, you still can’t order one quite yet, as the company continues to tweak the design.
For those who don’t want to buy an Apple Thunderbolt Display, the Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock is likely to be their salvation, adding access to eight devices through a single Thunderbolt cable.
The device includes three USB 3.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, one Gigabit Ethernet port, 3.5mm in and out audio jacks and an additional Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining to another device.
The good news is that Belkin has dropped the price from $399.99 to $299.99, but that comes at the expense of an eSATA port, which was added to the Thunderbolt Express Dock last summer.
At that time, Belkin pushed the release back to Q1 2013, which still appears to be the case. Belkin representatives told MacRumors that the device is targeted for “closer to the early part of the quarter,” so hopefully it’s just around the corner.
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