Review: iVANKY's FusionDock Ultra is a Premium 26-Port Thunderbolt 5 Dock for Your Mac

A couple of years ago, I reviewed i VANKY's Fusion Dock Max 1, a powerful Mac dock utilizing dual Thunderbolt chips and dual-cable connectivity to drive 20 ports of various types for extreme versatility. Since that time, i VANKY has taken things further with the 23-port Fusion Dock Max 2 and now the 26-port Fusion Dock Ultra, and I've spent the past few weeks testing out the top-of-the-line Fusion Dock Ultra to see how it performs. Similar to the Fusion Dock Max 1, the Fusion Dock Ultra features a dual Thunderbolt chip architecture that supports an impressive set of ports for power users. You'll find a huge array of USB ports, plus Gigabit Ethernet, SD/TF card slots, and more. The FusionDock Ultra offers an appealing and practical design, although the front of the dock is littered with ports. That's a positive for ease of access if you need to connect and disconnect things, but it results in a less clean look and can make it harder to keep cables out of sight. But with this many ports, it more or less requires using the full front and rear panels of the dock just to fit them all in, so it's an understandable compromise. The main body of the dock appears to float within a larger enclosure, only sitting on a few small pegs within the extruded black aluminum exterior shell. This design offers visual appeal while also providing room for airflow and a hefty amount of aluminum for heat dissipation via the copper-alloy midframe. In my testing, I found the exterior shell to get a bit warm with use, but not uncomfortable to touch at any point. On the front of the FusionDock Ultra, you'll find a whopping six 10 Gbps USB-C ports, an additional 10 Gbps USB-C port with Power Delivery support up to 45 watts, two 10 Gbps USB-A ports, a 3.5mm combo audio port, UHS-II SD and TF/microSD 4.0 card slots, and an LED power light that's bright enough to let you know it's on while remaining dim enough to not be a distraction, even in a dark room when your screens are sleeping. The rear of the dock