I bought a new Dell U2720Q monitor but the onboard graphics on my 13 inch 2013 MacBook Pro (Catalina) was not powerful enough to drive it at 3840x2160@60Hz. I had been using the Apple Thunderbolt Display prior to this and I really liked how through a single Thunderbolt cable it connected the display, ethernet, and USB devices. I didn't want to buy a new laptop as this one is still powerful enough for my needs of programming and not gaming.
As such, my parameters for an enclosure were that:
- Small form factor. A lot of enclosures such as the Sonnet Breakaway Box and Razer Core X are very large.
- This isn't for gaming so I didn't need a beefy video card or an enclosure with a really high wattage power supply.
- Thunderbolt 3. While my current laptop is Thunderbolt 2 I recognize I won't have it for more than 2-3 more years and will eventually have a Thunderbolt 3 computer.
- Ethernet and USB ports on the enclosure were a plus but not a hard requirement. The idea of having as many of my peripherals