In an email to customers, hardware upgrade company Sonnet has announced yet another shipment delay for its Echo 15 and Echo 15 Pro+ Thunderbolt docking stations. Unveiled in April 2013, the hardware is still in the pre-order stage. The latest delay is the result of a company decision to upgrade the device to support Thunderbolt 2.0. sonnet-dock-2

Following our last Echo 15 and Echo 15 Pro+ Thunderbolt Dock status update, we received very positive feedback and valuable input that confirms these products were designed with the right feature sets. However, there has been an increasingly louder chorus of requests for them to be based on Thunderbolt 2 technology. We carefully considered this input, and, combined with recent clarification of requirements for Windows Thunderbolt compatibility, we have decided to upgrade these products to use Thunderbolt 2 chipsets.

The Thunderbolt dock features a DVD or Blu-ray reader/burner, a 2.5" or 3.5" SATA drive bay (6 Gb/s) as well as a variety of ports for USB 3.0, SATA, eSATA, FireWire 800, audio input and output, and Gigabit Ethernet connections.

The Sonnet Echo 15 dock can be pre-ordered for $400 with a DVD drive and $450 with a Blu-ray drive. Different capacity hard drives are available as an optional add-on. The Echo 15 Pro+ starts at $550 while upgrading to a Blu-ray burner and adding space for a second solid-state drive.

(Thanks, Dan!)

Top Rated Comments

Trik Avatar
134 months ago
If they announce Thunderbolt 3 soon, we can delay it again and keep the cycle going. Sometimes you just have to ship a product, there will always be something better coming along...
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
G4er? Avatar
134 months ago
Why not leave out the DVD drive and let users add an external (if they ever need one) via USB or whatever?

Hell, that's the main reason I was looking at this. Nice to have it internal instead of having another external case.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nutmac Avatar
134 months ago
I wish the darn thing looked nicer. It looks too "PC" like for my taste.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mdelvecchio Avatar
134 months ago
Waaay too much for what basically is a hub.
it's all a matter of what value you get out of it. my first CD-burner was $1200, by NEC.

----------

didnt even know theres a tb 2. dead technology for the mass imo
completely wrong. it's just not designed for you, as your ignorance to its existence details.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ColdCase Avatar
134 months ago
I ordered one the beginning of April 2013.. and have suffered through number of delays, getting by with a USB3 hub. The last one almost guaranteed a Nov-December delivery. Now delivery over a year after the announcement... kinda typical for Sonnet? Next they will cancel. I suspect they could not get it to work right and they are hoping that TB 2 will either solve their issue or perhaps is just a good excuse. So instead of delivering a poorly performing product, they will just stop development. Too bad, as it has (or had) the right feature set for me.

By the way, I did not get an email with this announcement.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Skika Avatar
134 months ago
Waaay too much for what basically is a hub.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...