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I swear the people who decide what ports go onto laptops have never used a laptop in their life. I know now manufacturers would love to just sell you a dongle add-on or two that plugs into your USB-C port and has all of the other useful ports on it you actually need, but even before then… who needed only 1 USB-A and two lightning cable ports? When was Mini-DVI relevant?
Back in the 90s, most laptops came with a docking station or had options to buy it separately that added any port a desktop had at the time. None of this is new.
Not a real tree.
I’m a normal dude and with the exception of FireWire, I have used and require each and everyone of those connections.
I know now manufacturers would love to just sell you a dongle add-on or two that plugs into your USB-C port and has all of the other useful ports on it you actually need
I had to get one of these for my previous work laptop.
blessed be the framework laptop, you can just put in whatever ports you want
i have to deal with this with work laptops where i don’t get to choose, they gave me a thin one without RJ45 plug, and i suppose to be happy it is nice looking and sleek, but i rather it have beefy cooling
Same! Work gave me a Dell laptop, on one side there is a USB-C/TB, on the other side there is 2 USB-C/TB and HDMI. I needed to buy a small usb-c dock with PD, usb-a, second HDMI, RJ45, etc to work with it at home. At least it is easier to unplug and carry.
no hdmi on mine, usb-c only, i have to use an adapter for presentations :(
I use Deck dock at home sometimes.
My work laptop has two USB-A and two USB-C ports, and that’s it. And once of those C’s gets used to charge it. Plus, it’s so thin that the battery lasts an hour and a half just idling on desktop. I’m just glad I mostly work on hardware stuff so I hardly ever have to actually use it.
Man, I still lament their destruction of the aux (headphone) port. They destroyed that for the entire industry.
Macbooks still have a headphone jack.
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The top looks like an m1 macbook, which has a 3.5mm jack opposite the two USB c
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Yup, sorry
It’s so dumb. I’m obviously going to keep using non-proprietary headphones. Even if I have to buy a whole docking station with an aux jack.
I also missed the headphone jack until I was running one day and I got tripped by the wire.
I still want more USB ports. Just two ports, Apple? WT fridge?
Those book spines are top tier design
Unlike my game of thrones blu rays which have three motifs.
They’ve returned to fatter laptops with more ports. People did not like those thin MacBooks for a number of reasons.
The air is still very thin.
I miss thicker netbooks. Easy enough to repair most things, and it had every port you could ever want.
I hate the new “ultra-light” fashion. Give me thick, durable, powerful, and ported!
I still use my T420 because of the nice keyboard. Something like that plus usb-c would be amazing.
Same! Personal daily driver for 14 years and counting. You might be able to get USB-C via an Express Card? Haven’t looked into it, but those might exist.
the framework is basically the reincarnation of old thinkpads, including the business-level hideous pricing
Ignoring the fact that this is on par for Apple… (Which does tend to disseminate to other brands due to popularity)
The only issue I have is the deletion of the dedicated dock port, which should have less wear and tear due to fewer insertion cycles. (you’d only use it at the office, home or otherwise) The other ports being combined into fewer ones is just part of technological evolution toward mobile efficiency. If you are on the go, whether on-site support or between locations, you aren’t going to be lugging around 2-3 monitors; a printer; scanner; etc. You’d normally want something lightweight and easy to manage, so you can be in and out quickly.
If you don’t move around while working or whatever, a desktop PC should fit all of your connection needs.
Don’t care. Want ports.
I cannot remember the model, but I had a notebook once that was flatter than an RJ45 but had sort of a fold-out one. It sat flush with the case and when you pushed it, it popped out and opened slightly. Didn’t seem too flimsy, but surely less sturdy than one entirely encased.
USB-A, FireWire and that video output converged to Thunderbolt, which also means I can connect several displays to e.g. a 2021 MacBook Pro. The separate headphones and microphone jacks got merged as well. After the whole Touch Bar brouhaha, the card reader and HDMI also made their return.
So the one connector we did lose is Ethernet. Which, to be fair, is a bummer indeed. Luckily, we can easily push 1 Gbps over Wi-Fi nowadays.
you can push a gig over wifi now, but what’s that going to cost you?
I don’t know, since I didn’t have to specifically buy anything to get that throughput. So, in my case, it cost me nothing.
It was just an ISP-provided router and an older Mac Studio. I didn’t check but there’s a good chance the wireless link actually supports even higher bandwidth; at the time, I was bottlenecked by the 1 Gbps connection to my ISP.
Copium…
