Will a Thunderbolt 5 dock work with my Thunderbolt 4 laptop?

Yes — TB5 docks are backward compatible with TB4 and TB3, though you'll be capped at the older standard's bandwidth. Reviewers note this is a reasonable future-proofing buy if you expect to upgrade your laptop in the next couple of years, but otherwise a TB4 dock is meaningfully cheaper for identical real-world performance today.