ThinkPad Advanced Mini Dock

I just got my ThinkPad Advanced Mini Dock. It’s pretty awesome. It’s going to make things neater and easier, since I will now have a spare AC adapter for the road (eliminating the need for an extra heavier and larger battery), and I can keep all my devices plugged in permanently (though I can still use the ThinkPad’s built-in ports).

I did run into a few hiccups when I first tried out the dock. Initially, my laptop simply blanked out on me. I suspect it might have been a video issue: I hooked up a 15″ Dell LCD which I’d never used with the laptop before. It works fine now though, after adjusting resolution settings. I had to force shutdown (hold down power button) in order to reboot and get the machine up again, though.

Also, when I hooked up the Mini Dock after that, the ThinkPad’s built-in keyboard stopped working. No matter what I pressed, from the ThinkVantage key to the Fn keys, nothing happened. I was afraid it was some kind of incompatibility, or maybe a conflict with my USB Logitech mouse (which doesn’t include a keyboard) or because I wasn’t using the single PS/2 port on the dock (which is a nice touch, although I won’t really need it, I might use it since my Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse (USB) has a PS/2 port for no apparent reason (maybe if your laptop doesn’t have USB, but it doesn’t make sense that the instructions tell you to use both PS/2 and USB when on a desktop, but only USB for a laptop).

Fortunately, that was just some kind of temporary mix-up. Upon disconnect and then reconnect, my keyboard continued working, so it’s all good now. Good job, Lenovo/IBM. This is a pretty nice dock.