I just bought Dell 17R and would like to connect it to a docking station (ordinary one, not by USB).
How can I know if my Dell has a docking port? What does it look like?
Googling on 17R dock
leads me to Dell's website and from there to the page with the Dell USB 3.0 superspeeds dual video docking station.
Since is it USB there is not dedicated docking connector. It also lacks some features. E.g. you need to open the laptop, press the power button and then you can close the laptops lid again and start working from the devices connected to the dock.
This seems to be the only dock available for the 17R.
(which makes the short answer for you: There is no non-USB dock)
Alternatively, look in the manual. It will describe all the ports. If none of them are labels 'docking port connector' then you simply do not have one.
Note that for a 'real', non-USB docking stations you want business line. For Dell this are the Lattitudes. The same is true for other brands.
For the current generation Lattitudes, the docks and connector look like this:
And the connector on a E series Lattitude looks like this:
If you are intending on mostly using the laptop in a dock then I recommend contacting Dell and seeing if you can undo the order and get one with support for a real dock. And ask the current prices for the port replicator you want (there are 3 versions), and for the monitor stand. (The dock can be used alone or you can click to dock in a stand , in which case it looks like this:)