Most people can get by with a smartphone dock that’s made out of mediocre materials. However, if you’re wanting something better, the spec.dock plus is made from a single piece of CNC-machined wood (you can even choose which wood type you’d like), and is then finished and cleaned up by hand. The catch? Its price, which is currently $249.00 on spec.dock’s website (as of 1/28/2015, the price has been dramatically lowered to a very reasonable $99.00). It’s still a unique, classy take on what’s typically a traditional type of product. After writing this review, I have some post-review updates down below under the “Updates” section. Check ’em out!
Video Review
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The spec.dock’s design is extremely simplistic to where it should fit in with anybody’s living, office or work space. There’s a sticky pad on the bottom to keep the dock from moving around, and to keep it planted on the surface when you remove your smartphone. On the front and back are removable panels, allowing you to better manage the length of the included 6-foot USB cable. Speaking of which, I opted for the Lightning USB cable, but 30-pin and micro-USB cables are available.
The actual dock insert along the top is removable, allowing you to accommodate smartphone of different sizes, and even when cases are installed. Unfortunately, my particular iPhone 6 Plus case, the Speck CandyShell Grip, simply doesn’t work, even when the insert is removed. This is because the actual Lightning plug isn’t sticking out of the dock enough to fully insert into the device. Once the case is removed, though, it fits perfectly into the dock, with or without the insert.
Still, the dock looks very nice and was built extremely well. If you use thin cases or none at all and don’t mind the spec.dock’s high price, you shouldn’t have any issues.
Updates
In addition to the price being dramatically lowered from $249.00 to $99.00, there have been some physical changes to the docks. One of the changes is that there is no longer a compartment for cable management. This has supposedly decreased production time by quite a bit while also bringing down the price. They also made sure that the Lightning connector protrudes out of the case by 1mm so that it better fits into cases.
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