Anker says its new USB-C hub lets M1 MacBooks output to three external monitors

The new 10-in-1 hub from Anker allows an M1 equipped MacBook to output to three external displays, among other things. It is designed to overcome the limitation of Apple's MacBooks, which can only output to a single external monitor.

There are 10 ports on the Anker 563 dock, including 3.5mm audio and Ethernet. We are most interested in the display port, which has an HDMI port that can go up to 4K at 30Hz and a second port that can do 2K.

Image: Anker

The first HDMI port only goes up to 30Hz at 4K, which will mean a connected monitor won't feel particularly smooth to use. It might not matter if you are using it to watch video content or productivity software. Experience with previous hubs suggests the results can be unreliable, and you'll need to have DisplayLink software installed to get your M1 MacBook to output to this many monitors.

Hyper announced a pair of docks last year that could be used to run two displays off an M1 MacBook. There is still software you need to install even though the hub is plug and play. Macworld has a good rundown of your other multi-monitor options with various docks and hubs on the market, but be warned that some of them aren't officially supported by their manufacturers.

Image: Anker

The Anker 563 dock has a port that can provide up to 100W of power to a host machine, as well as a 1Gbps Ethernet port, a 5 Gbps data transfer port, and a 30 watt power delivery port. The dock has a DC input.

The first generation of Apple Silicon MacBooks have limited support for external displays, and the newer M1 Pro and M1 Max machines have native support for multiple external displays. We can only hope you won't need an expensive hub to connect multiple displays when Apple's rumored M2 equipped MacBooks are released.