So the wife wants a docking station for her Dell Inspiron laptop.  I don't think she needs anything major, just something that connects to her laptop and gives her duel monitor support when she plugs into it, charges it, and allows for a mouse and keyboard.

I looked around and I saw docking stations that range from $30 to $800 so I don't really know what to get since I've never ever used one of these things.

What do yall suggest?

Can't you have dual monitor support just by pluggin in another monitor to the regular laptop and plug in a keyboard and mouse?

I'm not really sure if docking stations really give much advantage anymore these days, I had an old one for a windows 95 compaq like that gave me CD-rom support and another harddrive, but even that I didn't use that much.

Unless its inexpensive it's probably not worth it.

I think it's just more of a convenience thing.  The laptop usually stays downstairs in the living room except if she needs to work.

Currently she just brings her laptop and forgets about the cord because she doesn't want to deal with it.  She also doesn't hook a monitor or keyboard up to it because, again, she doesn't want to deal with it.

You're right that it sounds like it's something that isn't needed so much, unless you're like her and hates dealing with that stuff and most of the time just won't.

I was hoping the docking station she just plugs her laptop in so that it:

• a single wire or plug that she has to deal with
• charges the laptop
• already has the monitor hooked up to it
• already has the mouse and keyboard hooked up to it

In my experience you have two types, the USB docking station and the one that the laptop will actually fit into. Normally the later is for business laptops and can be had for about £100 British pounds, the USB ones are normally cheaper.

Obviously the full docking unit is better as it provides easier docking and will also charge the unit as well as possibly introduce ports such as serial or additional USB, DVI. The USB offer much the same but are clumsier to dock with and would not charge the laptop.

Both as a minimum should allow for Keyboard, Mouse and monitor to be permanently connected to the docking station.

I do not know what model you have but this one looks like it will tick all the boxes.
http://www.pcupgrade.co.uk/productdetails.asp?ProductID=2675&categoryid=401