Technology

Meh... Did they really? Or do you just choose the worst?

This is my ~8 month old work laptop.

Is a Dell.

2 usb c not pictured.

You have options.

Fuck firewire. Glad it's dead. USB C is the best thing to happen to peripherals since the mouse.

I dunno - I’m pretty sure I’d choose the modern MacBook Pro’s ports over any of these other options.

And there's the soldered RAM and storage, and glued-in or screwed-in battery...

I dont know why this is controversial. I'm way more happy with 4x USB-C, than 5 unique ports, that will likely never be used on a regular basis, even when they were relevant

I'm no Apple fanboy (never owned a product of theirs and never will) but to be fair, those two USB-C ports can do everything the old, removed ports can do and more. The real crime here is not putting enough of them on the laptop.

Edit: The only port I'll lament the removal of is the headphone jack. USB-C headphones are rare, adapters get lost, and bluetooth headphones compress the audio and have input lag. Everything else can go, though, and won't be missed. (Okay fine ethernet can stay too.)

This post is actually so stupid, they didn't take shit from us, it's still right there.

Nobody uses a firewire cable anymore, USB-A/B is very outdated. On my work macbook with is a M1 Macbook Pro, I have a card reader, a usb-c and an hdmi port on one side, and a headphone jack, 2 usb-c ports and magsafe power ports.

Even if there wasn't, and it was just all usb-c, you can accomplish all of the same things ports. The old macbooks only had these ports on one side and the other had like one firewire or something.

USB-C can be used to deliver audio, video, ethernet connection, etc. You didn't lose any functionality. Worst case scenario you'd need a hub for the card readers or a usb to usb-c adapter, or ethernet to usb-c.

My work provided me with a usb hub that includes usb-a/b slots, hdmi, ethernet and power, which takes a single usb-c port. They're cheap and work just fine if you really need more than 4-5 ports.

Don't take it from me though!

2024 16" macbook pro: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/121554

• Charging and Expansion
• SDXC card slot
• HDMI port
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• MagSafe 3 port
• Three Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) ports with support for:
  • Charging
  • DisplayPort
  • Thunderbolt 5 (up to 120Gb/s)
  • Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gb/s)
  • USB 4 (up to 40Gb/s)

My current phone lacks a headphone jack and I hate it. It would be okay if it was replaced with two usb c ports, but there's only one which means I either choose between headphones or charging, or I must use an adapter. Or wireless, but I don't want yet another fucking battery to charge.

I miss having a thousand different cables to keep track of /s

really, all we need is the companies to start packing those laptops with thunderbolt3 or equivalent USB-C (USB 4). I love the old ports, but they were unnecessary. I'd rather the industry finally takes on the open thunderbolt standard and we're all good to go. With 10 thunderbolt ports you have 10 HDMI, or 10 USB, or 10 Ethernet, or 10 headphone jacks, or 10 RJ45 or whatever you need + PCIe tunneling.

Dude, those two little UBS-C ports do 50x what the ports on the bottom laptop could do

As long as a computer has 4 usb-c ports, I think you’re covered for everything.

Yes we had more different ports back in the days, but most were never used.

Usb-c is way more practical. Still that implies that you have more than 2 Usb-c ports.

To make our laptops look clean and minimalistic, they made us buy a bunch of dongles and adapters.

Screw it, I'm buying a rugged laptop with the thickness of a desktop PC next

Apple has always been an appearance over function company.

As someone who daily drives a laptop for work and does field work on server facilities, finding a modern replacement that has both a RJ45 port and square USB (USB-A?) ports available on both sides, has been a pain in the hassle.

And I'm not even crying over the loss of VGA any longer. That one I can live without.

Laptops from the 2010s represented a peak in design and performance, but since then, it feels like we've seen consistent downsizing and downgrades. Take the latest Intel CPUs, for instance—it's as if the marketing pitch is, 'It may not be very powerful, but at least it’s energy-efficient.' It’s almost as though manufacturers are catering to a market they perceive as indifferent, and we, as consumers, continue to accept diminishing returns while paying increasingly higher prices. This trend reflects a broader issue in life today: settling for less while being charged more.

This picture captures the essence of that realization, and it is truly heart-wrenching.

They remove the extra ports because they take up space in the board.

That aside if you’re buying Mac you took it from yourself. No one made you buy it.

I'm on the other side wishing peripherals would catch up and all become USB-C already. I'm tired of USB-A.

I’m glad I can plug in one port and have a dual display setup, all peripherals, speakers, ethernet, charging, etc connected at my desk in one go.

If I want to leave, unplug one thing and I’m good to go.

The desktop equivalent is "What happened to all my PCIe expansion slots?!"

(Note: processor PCIe lane count has gone up, used to be like 16 from CPU, 4 from chipset, since a GPU didn't need an x1x6 in terms of bandwidth - see SLI/crossfire. These days, it's just that many lanes go to M.2, with each using up to 4 lanes - vs having 6 SATA driven off the chooser)

Is this rage bait? Those are different macbooks. I think the bottom ones are pros. My current Pro M2 has HDMI and magsafe. My M1 (Air?) is like the top one, but is not in fact a pro and therefore does not provide as many ports.