This €265 Aluminum Table Was Designed Backward to Waste Just 4%

Furniture manufacturing has a quiet waste problem that rarely makes it into the marketing copy. Most pieces require significantly more raw material than what ends up in the finished product, with offcuts, excess, and scraps treated as an acceptable cost of doing business. Some studios have started designing around this inefficiency, treating material constraints not as a limitation but as a creative starting point.

Germany-based Momentum Studio took exactly that approach with its 06 Side Table. Rather than designing a form and then figuring out how to cut it from aluminum, the studio worked the problem in reverse, focusing on how to extract a meaningful shape from a flat sheet with as little waste as possible. The result is a table that looks like it came from a sketch, not a spreadsheet.

Designer: Momentum Studio

The laser-cut parts were nested with enough precision to use 96% of the raw aluminum area, leaving just 4% as offcuts. That figure wasn’t incidental; it was a major focus during development. By designing the two flat panels to fit together as efficiently as possible, the studio kept material costs low enough to offer the piece at €265 while keeping the entire production strictly made in Germany.

What emerged from that constraint is a silhouette that could easily pass for something from the Bauhaus era. The outer body is formed from two rectangular panels with softly rounded corners, each carrying a large circular cutout that creates an opening through the structure. A circular shelf sits midway inside, and a round tabletop closes the form at the top. The geometry is simple but hard to reduce further.

The material is Aluminium AlMg3, hand-brushed and waxed for what Momentum Studio calls a raw finish. That deliberate restraint means the aluminum will develop a natural patina over time, something the studio frames not as a defect but as part of the piece’s evolving character. The screws are stainless steel, and the assembled table weighs 6.75kg at 47cm x 47cm x 47.5cm.

The table ships flat-packed and goes together without any tools in about five minutes. That’s a practical bonus for a piece that doesn’t look like it should be easy to put together. The lower circular shelf is sized well enough for a book, a small object, or whatever habitually ends up beside a reading chair or bed. The tabletop above handles whatever you’d normally want within arm’s reach.

The design commitment extends to its broader material philosophy, which the studio describes as selecting materials for their permanence rather than their convenience, aiming to create objects designed to age with dignity and outlast generations. It’s the kind of table that stays in a room for a long time, which seems to be exactly the point. For a piece built from raw, waxed aluminum, that ambition doesn’t seem far-fetched.

The post This €265 Aluminum Table Was Designed Backward to Waste Just 4% first appeared on Yanko Design.

The $519 E-Ink Phone Hiding an LCD on Its Back

Scroll through any tech community online, and the same frustration keeps surfacing: people are exhausted by their screens. The perpetual brightness, the notification pull, the way a quick phone check somehow turns into forty lost minutes. That collective discomfort has pushed a growing number of people toward e-ink devices, displays that don’t glow in your face and don’t make a habit of demanding your attention.

What’s interesting about where the e-ink phone category stands in 2026 is that it’s no longer a one-off experiment. The Bigme HiBreak Dual, announced in mid-April 2026, is one of the more telling entries in this space, not because it perfects anything but because it doesn’t pretend to. A 6.13-inch color e-ink display takes the front, and a small circular LCD sits on the back, each assigned a different job.

Designer: Bigme

To understand what the HiBreak Dual is responding to, it helps to survey the surrounding territory. The Light Phone III is the deliberate anti-smartphone, built on the belief that fewer features genuinely change how you relate to a device. The Hisense A9 treats e-ink as the primary experience, unapologetically. The Boox Palma 2 Pro sits adjacent to the category, more phone-shaped reader than phone, though it can handle calls when needed.

Light Phone III

Light Phone III

The HiBreak Dual tries to sit between those poles. The e-ink front handles what e-paper does best: reading long-form content, staying on top of messages, and staying connected without the attention loop that comes with a typical smartphone display.

Light Phone III

Light Phone III

That decision to lead with e-ink also means accepting its well-known constraints. Try framing a photo with an e-paper preview, and the experience falls apart; the display’s refresh behavior wasn’t built for fast-moving content. Videos, live navigation, or quick-scrolling feeds follow the same logic. Color e-paper has genuinely improved, but it still carries a muted quality that reads as calm in some moments and limiting in others.

BOOX Palma 2 Pro

BOOX Palma 2 Pro

That’s where the circular LCD on the back becomes the interesting part. Rather than asking the e-ink panel to handle tasks it hasn’t mastered, the HiBreak Dual routes those moments to the secondary screen, situations that call for live camera preview, quick visual checks, or fast-loading feedback. The front absorbs the reading and communication rhythm of a day; the back quietly handles the rest.

BOOX Palma 2 Pro

BOOX Palma 2 Pro

The decision to make that rear display circular rather than rectangular carries a specific design logic. A round screen doesn’t compete with the phone’s primary face; it signals peripheral utility, not a second main event. It reads more like a companion display, keeping the device’s identity anchored in e-ink territory while still allowing it to borrow LCD behavior for moments that need it.

How long the hybrid approach holds up depends on the e-paper panels themselves. Better refresh rates, richer colors, and more responsive camera behavior would gradually reduce the need for a secondary display. Until that gap narrows, the e-ink phone category seems to be diverging in three directions: minimalist phones that accept the trade-offs, phone-shaped readers that sidestep the comparison entirely, and hybrids trying to keep a foot in both camps.

The HiBreak Dual isn’t a perfect phone, and Bigme isn’t trying to pass it off as one. Starting at $359 for the early-bird black-and-white configuration and climbing to around $519 for a color e-ink variant, it lays its compromises out in the open. The rear LCD doesn’t disappear into the design as if it isn’t there. It’s visible, it’s functional, and it’s honest about the gap it’s there to fill.

The post The $519 E-Ink Phone Hiding an LCD on Its Back first appeared on Yanko Design.

These Chopsticks Glow at Dinner Without a Battery or Power Source

Chopsticks have been around for thousands of years, and their form has barely changed. The material varies, from wood and bamboo to polished metal and lacquered resin, but the design conversation rarely goes beyond surface decoration. They exist to serve a function, and that’s mostly where the thinking stops, quiet tools that have settled into the background of the dining table.

LUNARIS takes that very stillness as its starting point. A conceptual chopstick design, it reinterprets the traditional form as a collectible dining object built around the relationship between material, atmosphere, and light. It doesn’t try to reinvent how chopsticks work, but asks a quieter question: what if the object you pick up for dinner could change the feeling of the room around you?

Designer: Ivana Nedeljkovska

Each pair is made up of two materials that meet at a deliberately fluid transition. The lower section is polished stainless steel, shaped so the metal flows naturally into the upper element rather than meeting it with a hard edge. The result is a form that reads as unified rather than assembled, closer to a sculpted object than a utensil with two components joined together.

The upper section is where the concept lives. It’s a transparent epoxy resin body housing delicate curved tubes filled with a photoluminescent material. During the day, the object reads as clean and minimal, the resin catching light in ways that feel closer to decorative crystal than a dining tool. Nothing about it immediately gives away what happens once the lights go low.

When the room dims, the photoluminescent tubes begin to release the light they’ve been quietly storing all day. Glowing lines emerge from within the resin, creating the impression of light trapped inside the form itself. The effect isn’t electric or sudden; it’s gradual and soft, more like something waking up than switching on. The glow comes in amber, white, and blue variants.

The point of LUNARIS isn’t to glow for the sake of glowing. The object is designed to create a different kind of interaction between person and object, one where atmosphere becomes part of the experience. Dinner at a dimly lit table takes on a different quality when the utensil in your hand starts contributing to the mood rather than simply doing its job.

Collectible design rarely makes it to the dining table in such a literal sense. LUNARIS is positioned as an object worth keeping and displaying, not just reaching for at mealtimes. The stainless steel chopstick rest included with each pair functions as a small display stand as much as a holder, a quiet suggestion that the object still earns attention long after the meal is done.

What LUNARIS proposes isn’t technically complex. There’s no power source, no battery, and no mechanism hidden inside the resin. The photoluminescent material works passively, absorbing ambient light through the day and releasing it slowly once the room darkens. The restraint is the point, and it’s a reminder that even the smallest objects on a table carry considerably more potential than they’re usually given credit for.

The post These Chopsticks Glow at Dinner Without a Battery or Power Source first appeared on Yanko Design.

GameSir Made a Cotton Candy Xbox Controller That Kills Stick Drift

Gaming controllers have long leaned into one of two visual languages: aggressive, angular designs aimed at the competitive crowd, or the familiar, conservative look of first-party hardware that blends quietly into any living room setup. The color palette rarely strays far from matte black, carbon gray, or safe-for-everyone white, as if bold design choices were somehow at odds with serious performance.

GameSir’s T7 Pro Sugar Whirl challenges that assumption with a translucent shell that blends soft pinks, blues, and lavenders, described by GameSir as a swirl of cotton candy and morning skies. It’s part of the brand’s Pastel Collection, and it’s officially licensed by Xbox, which means wireless connectivity to Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One isn’t an afterthought. The looks are deliberate, but so is the hardware underneath.

Designer: GameSir

At the core of the control experience are GameSir’s Mag-Res TMR (Tunneling Magnetoresistance) sticks, a non-contact magnetic technology that eliminates the stick drift that tends to plague conventional analog sticks over time. The Hall Effect analog triggers come with two-stage trigger stops, giving you a shorter pull when faster, more precise inputs matter most. For competitive play, both features represent a meaningful step up from standard controllers.

The controller also has two remappable back buttons, which can take on any function you assign through the GameSir Nexus software. Four rumble motors handle feedback, with a level of fine-tuning that most first-party controllers don’t offer. On PC, there’s also a six-axis gyroscope for motion control, making the T7 Pro Sugar Whirl versatile enough to keep up with platform-specific demands.

Connectivity follows a tri-mode approach. The controller pairs wirelessly to Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One via 2.4GHz, switches to Bluetooth for Android, and also works wired through USB-C. The polling rate reaches up to 1,000 Hz on PC and 250 Hz on Xbox, numbers that matter more when you’re playing anything that rewards split-second timing. A 3.5mm audio jack is included for headset use.

The 1,050 mAh battery charges via the included charging dock or through the USB-C port at the top of the controller. GameSir Nexus software handles all the customization, from button remapping and stick sensitivity to vibration intensity and RGB lighting effects. Multiple profiles can be saved and swapped between games, which saves the hassle of reconfiguring everything when switching between titles with very different control demands.

The RGB lighting adds another layer of visual personality, though it’s the translucent shell that does most of the aesthetic work. The pastel color blend is something the controller market doesn’t often attempt at this tier, and it comes off as genuinely considered rather than gimmicky. It’s the kind of design that sits on a desk and invites a second look from anyone who happens to walk into the room.

The post GameSir Made a Cotton Candy Xbox Controller That Kills Stick Drift first appeared on Yanko Design.

XPPen’s $210 Pilot Pro Finally Ends the Left-Hand Keyboard Scramble

Video and photo editing has always been demanding on keyboard shortcuts. The typical workflow splits attention between tools, timelines, and modifier keys, with the left hand constantly crossing the keyboard while the right stays on the mouse. Professionals spending long hours in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro know the frustration well, and a more deliberate way to manage those commands has long been missing.

XPPen’s Pilot Pro is the brand’s first dedicated editing console, and it makes a confident debut. It packs 16 customizable buttons, three dials, and an all-way joystick into a compact controller built for one-handed, eyes-free operation. The premise is straightforward: let the left hand manage the shortcuts so the right stays on the mouse and your eyes stay on the screen.

Designer: XPPen

The console’s layout borrows from game controllers but reads more like a precision instrument. An 8-way joystick at the center handles footage scrubbing, color wheel navigation, and clip selection depending on the software. Two rotary dials surround the joystick at different heights, and a third sits just in front. All three deliver haptic feedback through a linear motor that can be tuned or disabled.

What makes the eyes-free claim convincing is the sculpted 3D key layout. Every button and dial has a distinct shape and position, so your fingers learn the device without looking away from the screen. XPPen also added a hypothenar support beneath the controller to keep the outer edge of the palm anchored. That ergonomic attention earned the Pilot Pro a Good Design Award 2025.

The haptic motor makes each interaction feel intentional rather than accidental, which matters more than it sounds when you’re deep in a cut. Up to seven customizable themes let you organize shortcuts your way, and profiles can be shared within the community. XPPen also offers presets from professional editors, so jumping into new software doesn’t require rebuilding your control scheme from scratch.

Tasks like scrubbing through a long timeline, grading a batch of shots, or retouching a portrait session become much less disruptive to the flow. The joystick handles navigation without lifting the hand, the dials adjust values with fine precision, and the 16 buttons absorb the commands that would otherwise mean a trip across the keyboard. It’s a setup that rewards muscle memory fairly quickly.

For connectivity, the Pilot Pro supports wired USB-C, Dual-Channel Bluetooth 5.4 Low Energy, and a USB dongle for machines without Bluetooth. The built-in 1,900 mAh battery lasts over 15 days at four hours of daily use. It works with Windows 10 and macOS 11 or later, and is compatible with Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, and Final Cut Pro.

Weighing 251g with dimensions of roughly 130mm x 93mm, the Pilot Pro fits on the desk without crowding it. XPPen has priced it at $209.99, in line with other professional left-hand controllers. For editors who spend serious hours locked into a timeline, a device that keeps the hands comfortable and a hundred commands within reach can meaningfully change the pace of a workday.

The post XPPen’s $210 Pilot Pro Finally Ends the Left-Hand Keyboard Scramble first appeared on Yanko Design.

Galaxy Z Fold 7 Hit 4.2mm by Killing the S Pen: Worth the Trade?

Foldables have spent the last two years chasing a simpler goal: to feel less like category experiments and more like normal premium phones that happen to open wider. Samsung pushed that idea hardest with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, officially measuring 4.2mm when unfolded and 215 grams in weight, making it the company’s slimmest and lightest book-style foldable yet, with thinness as the product’s defining promise.

That promise came with a quieter subtraction. Samsung removed S Pen support from the Galaxy Z Fold 7, cutting off a feature that had helped earlier Fold models feel connected to the company’s productivity-first identity. Nearly a year later, that choice carries more weight because the Fold 7 can now be judged as a finished design decision rather than a fresh flagship still riding its novelty.

Designer: Samsung

In practice, the Fold 7’s thinness changes behavior more than bragging rights. Reviews consistently described it as startlingly slim and easier to carry, suggesting Samsung had something more deliberate in mind than a good keynote number. The lighter frame, narrower pocket profile, and more usable 21:9 cover display all push toward the same goal: making the Fold feel less like a second device and more like your actual main one.

The missing stylus, though, changed the Fold 7’s identity as much as its feature list. On earlier Fold devices, pen support helped justify the large inner display as a workspace, somewhere to annotate documents, sketch ideas, and do precise work beyond just tapping through apps. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 doesn’t support S Pen in any form, which means the phone has let go of that precision-first promise entirely.

Outside reporting helps explain why Samsung made that call. T-Mobile’s comparison notes the company removed a layer from the inner display to help achieve the slimmer, lighter body, while others report Samsung cited low stylus adoption among Fold users to justify the cut. Even if that logic makes business sense, it still leaves the Fold 7 feeling like a foldable optimized for comfort over creative ambition.

Samsung also tried to reassure buyers that the thinner body wasn’t a weaker one. The Fold 7 uses a thicker Ultra-Thin Glass layer, a Grade 4 titanium lattice, new adhesive materials, and IP48 resistance, all meant to reinforce a slimmer chassis without making it feel fragile. Those details speak more clearly to Samsung’s engineering intent than to any definitive verdict on how the phone holds up over months of folding.

The rest of the hardware tells a similar story of selective advancement. Samsung paired the Fold 7 with Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and launched it on One UI 8 with Android 16, giving the device a solid performance base. The battery stayed at 4,400mAh, and the ultra-wide camera remained a 12MP unit alongside the more attention-grabbing 200MP main sensor. The phone moved forward, just not evenly.

That unevenness becomes more interesting when you consider where Samsung might be heading next. We’ve already covered early renders suggesting the Galaxy Z Fold 8 could bring back S Pen support and a bigger battery, at the cost of a thicker chassis. If those rumors hold, the Fold 7 starts to look less like the start of a permanent direction and more like a controlled experiment in subtraction.

Galaxy Z Fold8 Render

For buyers who want the most elegant Samsung foldable for everyday carry, the Fold 7 still makes a strong case. It’s the first Fold that genuinely reduced the physical friction of ownership without a compromise you’d notice daily. For former Note loyalists and pen-reliant users, though, the trade reads differently, because Samsung made the Fold 7 easier to live with by moving it away from the Fold line’s original ambition.

The post Galaxy Z Fold 7 Hit 4.2mm by Killing the S Pen: Worth the Trade? first appeared on Yanko Design.

Fosi’s $150 Headphone Amp Snaps to Your iPhone Instead of Dangling

The dongle DAC has become a familiar but awkward sight plugged into the bottom of a smartphone, a small reminder that the headphone jack didn’t disappear quietly. Portable audio has come a long way in sound quality, but the form factor hasn’t kept pace. Most of these tiny dongles hang loose from the charging port, tugging at cables and generally getting in the way of an otherwise pleasant listening session.

Fosi Audio’s MD3 MagDac tries to solve this with a fundamentally different approach to portability. Instead of hanging from a charging port, it snaps magnetically to the back of a MagSafe-compatible smartphone using 16 N52 magnets, sitting flush against the device like a compact audio module. The result is a pocket-sized DAC and headphone amplifier that actually looks like it belongs there, not like an afterthought.

Designer: Fosi Audio

The design doesn’t stop at clever attachment. The MD3 is precision-machined from 6063 aluminum alloy with a sandblasted anodized finish, available in silver or black, both with orange leather on the magnetic back. At just 50g and 12m thick, it slides in and out of a pocket without protest. What you’ll notice first, though, is the 1.28-inch circular LCD display on the back.

That screen handles volume in 100 steps, shows audio information, and rotates its orientation depending on how you’re holding the device. There’s also a Vista Button that opens a personal photo album, a small but unexpectedly human touch for a piece of audio hardware. A dedicated Ease Button and physical navigation controls keep everything accessible without ever needing to tap your phone’s screen.

For the audio itself, Fosi didn’t compromise on components. The MD3 uses the ESS Sabre ES9039Q2M DAC chip paired with four ES9603Q amplifier chips in a true balanced circuit, supporting PCM up to 32-bit/384kHz and native DSD256. Total harmonic distortion and noise sit at just 0.00075%, and the noise floor drops to 1.7 μV. For most IEMs and portable headphones, those figures translate to noticeably cleaner, more resolving sound.

The MD3 offers both a 3.5mm single-ended output and a 4.4mm balanced output, delivering up to 180 mW through the latter, enough for headphones ranging from 16 to 300 ohms. An aluminum alloy shielding plate sits between the magnets and the audio circuitry to prevent interference from coloring the signal, a careful engineering detail that keeps the magnetic attachment trick from undermining the whole point of the device.

Dual USB-C ports handle both audio and charging simultaneously, so you’re not forced to choose between listening and keeping your phone powered. The top port handles audio decoding and charging, while the bottom manages audio decoding and firmware updates. There’s also a volume memory feature, so the MD3 picks up at the same level every time you connect it, without having to reset anything.

The wired audio revival has been building for a while, drawing listeners who want something more intentional than Bluetooth. A magnetic DAC that attaches to the back of your phone without cables or cases seems like a sensible next step in making that experience practical. Fosi has been laying the groundwork quietly, and at $149.99, the MD3 might just be the portable amp that finally stays out of the drawer.

The post Fosi’s $150 Headphone Amp Snaps to Your iPhone Instead of Dangling first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Orion PDA Runs on Sunlight and Ignores the Internet by Design

The smartphone has become so dominant in daily life that it’s hard to remember what it felt like to carry a device that did only a handful of things. Every swipe, tap, and notification competes for your attention, turning what was once a communication tool into a cycle of endless distraction. The maker community, however, has quietly been building an alternative.

The Orion PDA is one of the more convincing results of that effort. Built by a YouTuber who goes by MVLab, it’s a compact clamshell computer designed specifically for people who’d rather write, listen, or record than scroll. There’s no internet connection out of the box, no cloud, no algorithms, and no push notifications. What it offers is a deliberately focused pocket machine that strips away the noise.

Designer: MVLab

The design takes its cues from the Sharp Zaurus line of pocket computers popular in the early 2000s, and the resemblance is unmistakable. It folds open to reveal a small screen on top, and a full QWERTY keyboard with rubber dome switches below. Function keys run across the top row, letting you access common actions without digging through any menus. It’s compact enough to fit in a jacket pocket.

That screen is a 3.16-inch Sharp Memory LCD with a resolution of 536×336 pixels, rendered in 1-bit black and white. It might sound like a regression, but the display operates on the same basic principle as E Ink, drawing almost no power between refreshes and staying perfectly legible in direct sunlight. Take it out on a park bench or a café terrace, and it won’t let you down.

The custom operating system is built around doing a few things exceptionally well. You can pull up albums stored on an SD card, play them through an external speaker or headphones, and even record voice notes that go straight to removable storage. A lightweight calendar app handles basic scheduling. There’s also a text-scaling setting and a USB mass-storage mode for moving files to and from a desktop computer.

Powering everything is an STM32U575 microcontroller clocked at up to 160 MHz, an ultra-low-power chip that keeps the device running for long stretches between charges. The lid houses an integrated solar panel, which can supplement the battery enough to keep things topped up with occasional exposure to sunlight. A USB-C port also handles charging, firmware updates, and data transfers. An expansion port leaves room for future community-developed modules.

The Orion PDA also packs in a dedicated digital-to-analog converter for audio playback, putting it above the lo-fi output you’d expect from a device this small. A MEMS microphone handles voice recording with reasonable fidelity. It isn’t trying to replace your dedicated music player or studio recorder, but for capturing quick ideas or dictating notes on a long hike, it does what it needs to. For anyone tired of carrying a device that’s simultaneously a computer, a TV, a game console, and a social distraction, this one might be worth the wait.

The post The Orion PDA Runs on Sunlight and Ignores the Internet by Design first appeared on Yanko Design.

Art-ware Is the Dining Set That Never Has to Go in a Cabinet

Tableware has always had a storage problem. A complete set of cups, bowls, and cutlery takes up a cabinet’s worth of space for the privilege of being used a few times a week. The rest of the time, it sits behind closed doors, out of sight and contributing nothing to the space around it. That’s a lot of material devoted to a fairly passive existence.

Michael Jantzen’s Art-ware prototype takes a different approach to the same set of objects. Rather than designing tableware that gets put away after a meal, he designed a system where the dishes, cups, and cutlery connect to each other and become something else entirely: freestanding abstract sculptures that live out in the open, doubling as décor when they’re not being used for eating and drinking.

Designer: Michael Jantzen

The key to the whole system is a set of male and female connectors molded directly into each piece. These are simple protrusions that stick out from the surfaces of the bowls, cups, and cutlery handles, allowing any component to plug into or stack onto any other. A bowl can lock onto a cup, a cup onto another cup, cutlery can stand upright in an opening or connect through a handle, and the whole assembly stays together without any separate hardware.

The configurations that result don’t look accidental. Cups stacked and plugged together form vertical columns; bowls assembled at various orientations create clusters that read as organic, almost biomorphic forms. Slide cutlery upright through the assembled pieces, and the resulting structure starts to resemble a piece of abstract art you’d find mounted in a gallery, not something you’d normally find next to a kitchen sink.

That’s precisely what Jantzen is after. The Art-ware set doesn’t need to be stored in a cabinet because the assembled form is meant to sit on a shelf or table as a decorative object, a sculpture that also happens to be a dining set. You pull it apart before a meal and reassemble it afterward in whatever configuration suits you that day. No two arrangements have to be the same.

The material is recyclable plastic, and Jantzen frames the concept in straightforward sustainability terms: one product that performs multiple functions uses fewer resources than two separate products doing the same jobs independently. There’s no dedicated storage unit needed, no extra display piece required. The dining set is the décor, and the décor is the dining set.

Art-ware is a prototype and the first in a planned series of designs that expand the idea further. The concept is broad enough to go well beyond tableware, and Jantzen has spent decades applying this kind of thinking to furniture, architecture, and public installations. The dining set is a compact version of the same logic: objects that commit fully to their function while quietly doing something else on the side.

The post Art-ware Is the Dining Set That Never Has to Go in a Cabinet first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Memdock G3 Is the 13-Port Dock You Don’t Have to Hide Anymore

Modern desks have never looked better. Sit-stand tables, cable management trays, and ultra-thin laptops have turned the average workspace into something worth showing off. But for all the effort that goes into making a desk look clean and intentional, the accessories that actually power it are often still a mess, and docking stations, in particular, tend to be boxy, generic things that most people try to hide.

That habit of hiding docks makes sense, since most of them aren’t exactly something you’d want on display. The Memdock G3 takes a different approach. It’s a 13-in-1 docking station that doesn’t look the part in the way most docks do, and that’s a compliment. With a rounded aluminum body and a physical volume knob at one end, it’s designed to sit on the desk, not behind it.

Designer: Memdock

Click Here to Buy Now: $89 $189 ($100 off). Hurry, only 135/200 left! Raised over $50,000.

The aluminum shell is both light and sturdy. Weighing just 175g and measuring 17cm in length, it won’t crowd any desk. The silver-white finish sits comfortably alongside a MacBook or a Surface without looking out of place. A one-touch power switch keeps things simple, while the knurled volume knob doubles as a status indicator with a blue ring glowing softly at its base.

Where the G3 separates itself from generic hubs is with its dual HDMI outputs, both capable of 4K at 60Hz. Whether you’re juggling two monitors or spreading your workspace across screens, the setup doesn’t need extra adapters or complicated display routing. It works across Windows and macOS without additional drivers, so plugging in is genuinely all you need to get a full dual-screen arrangement running.

Charging is another area where the G3 keeps things clean. The 100W PD port can keep a laptop topped up while everything else stays connected, which means you don’t need a separate charger taking up another outlet. Pass-through charging also stays active even when the dock is switched off, so your devices keep charging overnight without you having to think about it.

On the data side, the G3 carries multiple 10Gbps connections, including USB-C, which is meaningfully faster than the 5Gbps typical of most docks in its category. Moving a batch of raw photos or offloading footage from an external drive feels noticeably quicker, cutting the time you’d otherwise spend watching a progress bar crawl. Two USB-A ports handle the everyday stuff, from keyboards and mice to thumb drives.

Photographers and video shooters will appreciate having both an SD and a TF slot built in, which removes the hassle of hunting for a separate card reader every time they need to pull files off a camera. Pair that with a Gigabit Ethernet port for a steadier wired connection, and the G3 handles a range of workflows that most hubs can’t without reaching for yet another dongle.

The volume knob deserves a separate mention, not just as a feature, but as a design choice that says something about the G3’s priorities. Instead of digging through a settings panel every time you want to nudge the audio on a call, you just reach over and turn it. It’s a small thing, but it’s the kind of immediate, tactile control that feels obvious once you have it.

Docking stations rarely get treated like products worth designing with real care. They sit at the junction of display, power, data, and audio, making them genuinely central to how a desk functions, yet they’re almost always designed as if nobody will ever look at them. The Memdock G3 is a reminder that the things holding a workspace together can be just as thoughtfully considered as anything else on the desk.

Click Here to Buy Now: $89 $189 ($100 off). Hurry, only 135/200 left! Raised over $50,000.

The post The Memdock G3 Is the 13-Port Dock You Don’t Have to Hide Anymore first appeared on Yanko Design.