Unitek USB SATA HDD Audio Dock Station, Kitchen Sink FOUND!

Let's see, no Display and no Mouse. That and a CPU are about the only thing separating this uber-gizmo from being an entire computer. This seems to have started as a USB 2.0 SATA hard drive dock set in an upright holder. These make it easy to manage bare SATA drives on the desktop for storage purposes and easy drive imaging similar to the Thermaltake BlacX. That's when a Swiss-Army consultant seems to have gotten involved and tried to one-up all-in-one dock devices made by anyone else.

The base is predominantly a big stereo speaker with a 3W power amplifier. This speaker is fed by a built-in USB sound card. Besides feeding the speaker there's also a headphone jack on the hub as well. Full VOIP functionality can be attained with the thoughtful addition of a microphone as well. The headset function has been tested with Skype, Google Talk and MSN but just about anything should be possible. For control, there's a conveniently located volume controls and a mute button for the mic. There's also a line-in jack for good measure. All of this without the need of a single driver, all of the devices are natively supported by Windows 2000 and higher or Mac OS 9.X and higher. Available now at Brando for $59.

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