Great deal on laptop port replicator

Just bought one of these - - for €25 (total including P&P c. €40) from Expansys.ie which seems like an absolute bargain especially since they are listed on most of the other Expansys country specific sites for up to ten times the price (e.g. , , etc.). Maybe it's a mistake but it's been like that for a while now. Delighted with the purchase especially when I was about to spend about the same amount on a USB to DB9 serial cable and this does the same job and more for the same price! This port replicator has the advantage of not being laptop specific and capable of being used with other laptops too. Interestingly there seem to be other (albeit not so significant) price disparities between the different Expansys country specific sites for some reason. Not sure why.

Good spot CM.. I was looking for one last year and the basic cheap ones were starting at around the 70-80 mark ex delivery so I just picked up a couple of the USB hubs in aldi instead, which do the job in part.

How long for expansys to deliver?

I ordered last Tuesday and it arrived yesterday but I only got to pick it up from the sorting office today.

How do you connect your laptop into it? do you need to install a card or does it plug into a USB port or something?

It comes with a CardBus/PC Card/PCMCIA Card cable as illustrated here and this connects into the CardBus/PC Card/PCMCIA slot on the side of the laptop. It also has it's own power supply so it's more of a desk based port replicator/docking station solution than a portable port replicator for on the move. There are some other issues to watch out for (e.g. not compatible with Ricoh CardBus controller chipsets used in some laptops - including some Sony Vaios even though mine uses a compatible Texas Instruments chipset) so check the detailed specs and web reviews for details before buying.

Does it work with an iBook...how does it connect to your laptop, via USB? I was going to get an iBook docking station, but there only seems to be one available at over ¢100...this sounds like a great solution!

Er, did you actually take the trouble read my last post and the link that I posted!? As I said in my previous post above it connects via the PCMCIA/PCCard/CardBus connector. There may be drivers available for non Windows systems. I don't know.