My desk was a mess until I got this USB-C stand and charging station

Never in my life have I unboxed a gadget and started using it as fast as I did with this one. Less than a minute after I’d received the Satechi Dock 5, I had already cleaned up my desk, set it up, and sighed of relief.

See, my work desk has become busier and busier over the last year. I used to have an iMac, a multi-port USB-C wall charger to keep my phone, tablet, and accessories topped up, and a headphone stand. That was it. Things were manageable.

But in an embarrassment of riches kind of way, I found myself with a bunch of Android phones I needed to use simultaneously, several pairs of wireless earbuds, a Pixel Watch, an Oura Ring, a Kindle Scribe, and a few random gadgets here and there, depending on what I’m reviewing at the moment. The 120 x 70 cm surface of my Ikea Idasen is not made to handle all of that overload.

Things kept piling up. So I added an Anker 623 wireless charger and a repurposed laptop stand I already own as a vertical stand for my Kindle Scribe to get it off my desk. I leaned my iPad against it. That didn’t help. Every day, I’d still find myself with a stack of phones and gadgets, plus a bunch of errant wires. So. Many. Wires.

I had to rein it all in somehow, and that’s how I ended up on Amazon, looking at three- and four-slot vertical stands, thinking I could keep my multi-port charger and use it along with a new stand. Then I pivoted to charging stations because d’oh, they make the most sense for my use case!

After a few hours of research, I found the perfect charging station with a combination of style and function that would fit my very needs. It’s the Satechi Dock 5, and it’s basically a combination of the three separate elements I previously had on my desk: stand, multi-port charger, and wireless charger.

The unit itself is very simple, built robustly, and has a premium feel. It’s a heavy-weighted aluminum base covered in a soft but grippy black silicone pad with five rigid vertical separators that form four slots. There’s over 2cm of distance between each separator — more than enough for a phone even in a chunky Otterbox case or something as wide as a Pixel Fold. While the separators seem short, they’re sturdy enough to hold my iPad Air 4 and Kindle Scribe, without any risk of them toppling over. As a matter of fact, I’ve had both on the Dock 5 for the past couple of weeks without an issue. Even jostling phones around doesn’t cause the iPad or Kindle to flip or slide.

On one side of the top mat is a 10W wireless charging pad. It’s large enough to host a Pixel Fold with a few millimeters to spare.

And on the bottom base, aligned with each vertical slot is a charging port: 2x USB-A ports that go up to 12W each and 2x USB-C ports that go up to 20W each.

Obviously, with those speeds, this isn’t the charger you’d pick if you wanted to fill up your laptop or fast-charging phone in a rush. For me, though, my desk isn’t the place where I need either of those. Quite the contrary, I’m sitting here all day and I have time, so I’m fine with regular charging speeds. Plus, most devices on it aren’t part of my heavy rotation; I just need them intermittently throughout the day. This is why the Dock 5 works for me, and why it might or might not work for you.

My current setup is the one you see above. The iPad and Kindle Scribe go on the farthest slots and, since I don’t need them frequently enough, I only charge them when they start running low. The other two slots house the phones I’m currently testing, reviewing, or just checking things on. And finally, the wireless pad acts as a catch-all for my wireless earbuds and whatever phone I happen to be using the most at the moment. It also saves me from bringing out the Lightning cable each time I need to top off my older, USB-C-less testing iPhone.

Since everything charges over USB-C, I keep two or three short cables plugged in at most, and one of them is always free. That’s where I attach the small puck that charges my Oura Ring 3 or the adapter for my Pixel Watch 2.

Overall, I think that you, me, my husband, and the organization freak that lives inside my head (whose voice is oddly very similar to my mother’s) can all agree that this setup is cleaner, nicer, safer, and better organized than whatever was happening on my desk before. And for that alone, the Satechi Dock 5 wins in my book… until my boss tells me I need to test more gadgets.