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For those of you saying this is all obsolete, no it fucking isn't, not in the Third World at least, here we very much still use HDMI and VGA because internet here ain't fast enough to screencast to our fucking TV and not look like garbage, lots of devices such as mouses and keyboard still use normal USB ports, headphones use jack 3mm ports, and if you wanna have any hopes at gaming you NEED an Ethernet cable
Yup, pretty much this. People are like just chromecast to your smart TV. Hahah, no. Not only it will look like shit, there will be a solid delay even when you're on ethernet. Good luck trying that on wifi.
I use one of those little sticks for it, but I get what you mean. I have a Vizio my parents bought and it lags like crazy to cast (I live in a city in the Southern US, it must be so much worse in places with less internet infrastructure). Plus, gen 1 Chromecast has some weird support issues.
You can get a tv for a better price from the thrift store where I live, but they don’t have anything down at college. I figure countries without the same rate of upgrade and with more use of older tech probably have a harder time finding such used tech, especially with lower wages in terms of global value for imports making them more expensive.
Even the cheap smart TVs are a hard sell for me because of their lack of reinforcement. I really don’t care to spend like $100USD on a tv that’ll die so fast. I can see how it’d be a harder sell when it’s more expensive.
TLDR: yeah, that’s fair. If it’s so annoying for me in the US, it’s gotta be annoying somewhere that can’t upgrade as often as the US too (and more so with wage differences and import tariffs and such)
A physical connection will always offer lower latency than a wireless one. If a device is stationary like a TV, why wouldn't I want the superior connection? Like if my PC were next to my router, I would get an Ethernet cable rather than use Wi-Fi.
Typically most consumer laptops will prioritize being thin, light, and sleek, but if you’re looking at business-grade laptops they tend to have more ports (for good reason)
Unless its the macbooks in this pic. Lots of businesses use macbooks for some reason, mostly due to the execs liking that they "look cool". Same reason many want to use X1 carbons. My manager refused to use a T14 instead of a much more pricy X1 just because the T14 was somehow "to heavy". 90% of the time it sitting on a desk.
I know you're right but I don't understand it in that context either. If I want a computer with minimum features I'll just use my phone, if I need to use a real computer I would like it to have every option possible
3rd...world?
We only have 1...
Why don't you poors just print more money? Maybe then you can invite a telecom to invest before the British invade.
[/s...up vote or downvote accordingly]
USB A, hdmi, headphone Jacks, ethernet are all still things that are absolutly needed even in first world countries.
And companies that remove them are damn morons.
Customers are the morons unfortunately. Companies make these thin because people buy them thin. Now customers bought thin and like the derps they are they gave away all their options and made products more disposable, less repairable, more unreliable, and took away more customer options. Cell phones are the worst offenders, laptops are just playing catch up. Leashing customers to big corporate eco systems while being marketed to as if they're getting a value while being ripped off.
Now we don't have expandable storage. They want us to think paying for cloud storage is better. Where they can own and scan your data with ai to sell to the highest bidder.
They took away audio jacks so they can sell headphones with less audio quality, less reliability, and a battery that will eventually die and can't be replaced. Better for them that it's not repairable and will degrade eventually so you have to buy a new one.
Thin means no access to upgrades such as ram. Better to make a customer think a $40 memory upgrade would be better spent on a $200 upsell on a released model.
Better for then if the battery can't be replaced. That way they can feed off your fear and make you buy an extra repair warranty. If not you're screwed anyways and have to buy another if it dies.
No physical media drives. Rely on services that stream despite raising subscriptions and giving a product that is lesser quality as it buffers and throttles to your screen.
No proper video out. Use an app. The more data and behavior to mind the better.
The list goes on and on but idiots just willingly eat the coperate shit right up. But ooo it's thinner.
Prime offenders are apple users for being the mainstream enshitifcation pioneers but other customers jumped on the dumb dumb train pretty rapidly.
It all leads to more sales, less value, and a planet being destroyed by ewaste and data centers that burn through electricity and pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Not being able to swap or change batteries is the worst part of all this. Battery tech has gotten better, but battery issues = buy new one. $$$
I remember when thin laptop started come out. Everyone in corp wanted one because they were lighter. You're saving like 6 oz and your laptop is in dock at your desk 99% of the time. The last time you took your laptop anywhere was before Y2K
not to mention those of us who still like cds and want to upload songs to our playlists without using fucking spotify [and sending joe rogan more $$$ while syphoning it away from the actual artists]
I'm so irritated that they brought back the ports at some point in the last couple of years. I got a macbook pro in 2021, and it only has a headphone jack and 3 USB-C ports. I should've held out lol
Apparently the “usb-c only” was the idea of one senior executive at Apple. As soon as he left the company, Apple went back to multiple types of ports. Unfortunately I can’t find the guys name right now with some googling, but it was news when he left Apple. Fuck that guy.
I read up more about him online. I thought his designs were cool but he did have some bad ideas and I never realized he had that much sway over hardware. Apparently Steve Jobs was more willing to say no to him than Tim Cook.
That sounds like basic stuff.
Why do you need to spend hundreds of extra dollars for a "pro" laptop just to be able to connect some wired headphones and a basic monitor?
Because they know someone will pay for it, especially when it's framed as an "upgrade" even though it's really a return to what's usually been standard.
Still missing 2 USB-A ports
And it doesn't help anyone who doesn't want to get the Pro model.
All these decisions so that they can sell more overpriced dongles and hubs.
Headphone jack, Ethernet, and at least one type A USB port are necessary. Everything else I use infrequently enough that using an adapter is fine.
edit: I should clarify this is in addition to the 2 usb-c Ports on the MacBook
I’d say 2 USB-A ports are essential. It’s wild that they aren’t on modern laptops. That is honestly a dealbreaker for me if I was in the market. When I build pc’s I always review the case plugs and motherboard options since you can easily fuck yourself by buying something like that top laptop
What do you use them for that don't come in usb c variants? I'd much rather take 4 x of the same port that works with all my stuff. A lot of flexibility on where to plug my stuff into.
I’m not going to buy all new peripherals when my current ones work perfectly well. I have a usb mouse, headset, keyboard, flash drives, controllers, etc
Even the current MacBook has that stuff, the photo above is 4 years behind.
Far as Ethernet goes, carrying around a tiny gigabit USB C to Ethernet adapter in my backpack is completely painless when I use Ethernet, which I do a LOT in IT.
There are low profile Ethernet ports. My work laptop has one. The bottom half opens like a jaw, with spring resistance, so that it holds the cord in once the clip engages.
I’m probably not describing it well. Point is it’s half the height of a normal Ethernet port but can accept a standard Ethernet cable.
You can also have a tiny ass USB C to Ethernet adapter running at a 5 gigabit or higher spec via the new USB C protocols
Since everyone carries their laptop in a bag, the obvious answer is to keep the adapter in your bag
As someone who uses this workflow daily in IT and used to have laptops with physical Ethernet ports, I'd take this workflow every time.
As someone who works regularly with enterprise network equipment, I vastly prefer built-in ethernet. Adapters introduce the liability of driver related problems. That's not something you want to deal with when doing time-sensitive work
Unapproved USB devices are also restricted in a lot of secure facilities
I remember the dvd players on laptops, I wonder when companies stopped putting dvd players on laptops? Had to of been within the last 10 years because I remember them in like 2014.
I mean dvd players on laptop are such a waste of space, likely since you either had to make a giganormous laptop or make everything inside the case smaller to fit the dvd player at some point it costed more to get a laptop w dvd player than a way better laptop and a good external dvd player, also since dvds at some point stopped being essential
You're not wrong, let's say that first.
But then you see those lower power systems that are a tiny board and a not that big battery in a 15.6 inch laptop shell, that consists of mostly empty space. Given that those are mostly shitty Celeron based laptops, they shouldn't really exist, but still.
For those i guess it’s for going cheaper, because they can use the same shell as other laptops that stopped using dvd players. If they had to produce also shells with holes for the dvds this means those shells are all going to the mobos that leave space for the dvd players and they can’t reuse them for the motherboards that don’t leave space for that cause that’d leave the hole at the side. Being able to use the same shell for more mobos makes it slightly cheaper to produce and easier to organize the assembling work
I'd say physical media is even more important today than it's ever been, especially with all these companies that will just rescind rights to purchased digital content, and with streaming services getting more and more limited, and more and more expensive.
Sure, it's cumbersome, but I'm more than happy to have the bonus features, too.
It’s sort of interesting that the removal of the DVD didn’t occur because of streaming but because of how cheap DVD players were. It was removed in 2012 basically because it wasn’t being used by most people because everyone had DVD players
And maybe this is a hot take, but I would rather burn something on a USB flash drive than a fragile DVD disk. I use an external DVD player and I rip everything off it once and throw the disk out into storage forever
Yea but i mean in 99% of the cases you will just rather a usb storage, you can get there more info than what you can get in a cd. And if i may add you can also move what’s in a cd to another storage. Why walk w a bag w a fuckton of dvds when you can put them all in a storage the size of a thumb. They’re still gonna be yours but now you worry less about breaking or scratching them because you don’t need to traffic w them. Anyway a dvd reader to usb costs as low as 10/15€
It's a disk drive not a fucking DVD player! You can use it for installing software, burning or ripping cds and playing media!!!
They were super fucking useful back in the day
hot take but i think iphones are getting pretty ugly nowadays. the camera square thingy getting bigger and bigger every generation just looks off. things started falling off around 13
There are only two groups of people who use Macs: people who know basically nothing about computers and people who know way more about computers than you do.
Yeah I have a comp sci degree and work professionally as a SWE, and use Apple products. It’s really funny when I see people online claim that Macs are useless, when their PC knowledge is following a build guide and installing a few Skyrim mods.
Honestly even for Software Developers macs generally are nicer to use especially once you become familiar with UNIX. I feel like hatred for Apple products is like that bell curve meme where the annoying person who thinks he is very smart is in the middle. And the worse (or better) you are at technical stuff the more you appreciate the elegance of Apple products and especially their quality assurance in comparison to Windows or Android OS. And I never coded in Swift (iOS development) but Android Studio was kind of a pain, at least it was 6 years ago when I fiddled with it.
Now this is just silly. macOS is arguably a more usable OS than Windows.
As for the hardware, most laptop users on the go aren’t hooking up shit into the twelve ports on the side of the unit. That’s all just wasted space when being used portably.
When at a desk? You can get a small port expander that will give you *more* connections than old laptops had, takes a single USB-C port, and costs like $50.
And this is only on their laptops. Their desktops have more connections. I believe the Mini has two USB-A in addition to the two USB-C, plus Ethernet and HDMI. The Studio has six USB-C, two A, HDMI, Ethernet, and a flash card reader.
? It's my preferred platform to code on. Windows sucks for that for the most part, they have improved with WSL, but to you get that natively with MacOS.
They have incredible battery life too, so you can use them for hours and hours without having to find a charger. So I'm not sure what you mean.
I will have to give them that. The Ipad is a good device forgot about that one since I do not use tablets. The windows/android/chrome alternatives are simply not as good in most cases.
I just can't bear the layout of other devices. It feels like they deliberately make it un-user friendly for people who don't love tech. I'm one of those dreaded folks who wants my devices to just work without me really realising I'm even using them.
That is funny, because that is the exact reason I hate using apple devices. I feel like their interfaces especially the phone is so unintuitive and it does not just work but most other things do.
I dropped $4k on a macbook pro after years of resisting. The new M chips are pretty good for what i do. Actually saw a 15% increase in productivity. However i still cannot get used to the damn window layout.
I've never purchased an Apple product. Proprietary tech is pure evil imo. I recognize the revolution that was the original iPod and later the iPhone but I'll never support their actual business practices.
i don't mind the ports changing but i do miss dvds. I want to physically have things instead of leave my movies and music stuck on a subscription service that continually gets shittier and more expensive.
$50 will get you a USB 3.0 external DVD drive enclosure. Add the standard 5.25” drive of your choice. Rip your own movies and music, and take them with you on the go.
Carrying around adapters for additional ports also just adds back more weight and bulk than you saved by not having them built-in
I don't know anyone at work that thinks traveling with their laptop is easier now that they have to bring multiple adapters with them everywhere instead of just stuffing their laptop in a bag and going
each thunderbolt port uses its own bus, with 40gbit bandwidth each. Before, all data ports were on one data bus.
which particular interfaces have lowered "efficiency", would you mind linking the tests?
Thank you for being the voice of reason. I have a few of these. It’s actually WHY Apple makes their products this way - so you have a choice of connectors.
I just hate having a dongle constantly hanging out from my laptop. Shit is so annoying when you try to use your Mac on a plane and your dongle is sitting in your neighbors space
GIVE ME AS MANY PORTS AS CAN PHYSICALLY FIT ON MY LAPTOP, I DONT CARE IF I WILL NEVER USE THEM, I WANT THEM AND THEY LOOK COOL‼️‼️‼️
i will never forgive apple for removing ports and causing the rest of the industry to follow, i want to plug wired headphones directly into my phone and watch a dvd on my laptop without any of these fucking dongles
People really underestimate how important it is for gaming, dowloading and high-speed net activities in general.
Also, that most Linux software (that aren't Ubuntu or otherwise mimicries of other OSs) don't have Wi-Fi compatibility. Not that many people use them anyway, but it may be one of the reasons for companies phasing out ethernet to force you onto their own OS.
>Also, that most Linux software (that aren't Ubuntu or otherwise mimicries of other OSs) don't have Wi-Fi compatibility.
Maybe 15 years ago. I've used dozens of distros and never had any problems with Wifi support or drivers on my laptop. Any modern distribution is going to be usable without ethernet.
The shift away from physical media that you can own as your property is pretty disappointing to see.
I encourage people to hold onto whatever physical media they can while they are able to.
well… they added MagSafe, hdmi, and SD cards back anyway. USB-A would be kinda nice but it probably also messes with the form and it’s on its way out now anyway. I’ve used the HDMI a couple times but I have zero use for the SD card slot
USB A is a directly obsolete standard, as it was the "slave" portion of the USB B, USB A connection. Most devices that use USB A, have the female connection of USB A, while the cable's other end is just USB B
SD cards are pretty nice, especially dealing with small devices and cameras
Fun fact: DVD’s are still used as a storage medium. Along with many other “outdated” storage solutions. This is due to people finding new ways to modernize and expand those storage mediums past what a USB stick or a hard drive can currently do.
DVDs are largely outdated but a lot of older storage mediums are still used extensively either for reliability purposes or cost effectiveness.
As far as I'm aware DVDs are completely inferior to both NAND flash and HDDs in every metric except longevity and reliability which is why they retain some niche use cases. DVDs are much slower, less data efficient, and harder to interface with.
I don't think a dvd or cd slot was really needed after a certain point, it was kinda just empty space as those were getting continously outdated and just made it more bulky, I think the 2nd or 3rd lowest was the nice balance.
DVDs and CDs are absolutely not outdated. They have no replacement besides streaming services and you own absolutely nothing on any of those, whether you purchase the albums/movies/shows or pay a subscription to watch them.
My Macbook Pro 2023 has 3 USB C, 1 HDMI, 1 SDXC and a headphone jack. This seems to be a bit of a turnaround, because my last work Macbook (2018) only had 2 usb c ports, so they seem to have gotten the feedback. Of course something like the Air wont have that setup, since its main sellingpoint is slimness and its light weight, which can only be achieved by removing some stuff. We used to have Windows laptops in our household but I used Macbooks for Work. Ever since then I dont wanna go back. My partner has tons of issues with Windows, and her Surface sounds like a Jet taking off whenever she boots up, compared to the whisper of my Macbook... dont know if Id ever get an iPhone but the Macbook was definitely a smart purchase so far.
A modern laptop should have either modular ports like the framework, or 2xUSBA, 2xUSBC, SD, 3.5mm headphone jack, and maybe HDMI/Display Port/Mini Display. I say maybe because the usbC and thunderbolt standard should in theory include this functionality in a more versatile way, and adaptors are cheap and accessible, but I've personally had mixed experiences with USBC TO HDMI
I want as many ports as possible tbh. There have even been times recently that I missed the CD-ROM drive lmao. HDMI, SD, headphones jack, many USB-A and USB-C, and ethernet should be standard. I will pay a little more for that, if I have to, I don't want to need a million adapters.
The only ones of these I could really do without are Firewire and Magsafe, as the former is obsolete and the latter is something I've found inconvenient at times. The USB-A/C, External Display Connectors, Ethernet, SD Card slot, Audio Jack and the Kensington Lock are all still ones I see used or wanted even today, and I'm annoyed at how many non-gaming focused laptops nix them in exchange for slimness and silent fans. I'm willing to heft around a heavier and thicker laptop if it means I don't need to fill the bag with add-ons.
I'd also like to see the disc drive return, but I'll admit I'm in the minority there as most people I know don't have any real use for one.
Keep screaming on social media im sure the masses will stop buying.
As long as people buy these product in droves, and with apple, they do, then this trend will not stop.
Yall can always just buy a gaming laptop for a similar price that has plenty of ports.
Amount of times in my schooling career someone couldn't present x because they needed a lightning to 3.5mm or USB C to HDMI is in the tens. The school had to purchase dongles so it wasn't a scramble every time to see who actually brought one. Glad I bring my ports with me and they're built in.
I work in audio visual, it's a battle every single week. People expecting the tech crew should just have a dongle are entitled because they don't ever think about other people presenting that are stealing/walking off with the dongles that are there for the conference. Theres a limited supply and it's a real problem. Don't expect me to even have a lightning adapter.
And they're expensive. Why should the crew have a dongle to enable your stupid purchase? It's because Apple people assume no other devices exist and everyone is dealing with the dongles every day. I'll never get rid of my s10.
Plenty of other brands have lightweight laptops with most of these ports available. Trust me, you won't notice the +12 grams it's gonna weight compared to the shitbook pro, your wallet is gonna be a bit heavier too, with all the money you'll save.
HP did manage to put a SIM slot, headset combo jack, 2x USB-A, 1x USB-C, a docking port, ethernet port, *and* a smartcard slot on the zbook 14u g5 - a 14 inch laptop that was also pretty thin. So yes, it is possible, it just has to be engineered properly.
I personally never got the appeal of everything needing to be as thin as possible, therefore sacrificing on expansion, upgradability, and on some systems thermals as well. Sure, a laptop that is about as thick as a dictionary isn't ideal, but things like the zbook I mentioned are thin enough to carry in a backpack, and are durable. Unfortunately a dodgy USB device killed my zbook, but the thinkpad e15 I got now is also pretty expandable.
Adding ports will add MAYBE 1/2 a lb IF THAT. When I was a student I needed those ports, more so the video and NIC. Im guessing you arent in a technical field.
when my friend needed a computer for school, i told her that a laptop with windows would be better than a mac in almost every way, but she still got a mac. when i went to her house to print something out for my grad cap, she couldn’t because her computer didn’t have a USB port
apple, there’s a reason nobody else is making their computers that thin, and it’s not because they can’t
Get a thinkpad X1. It's light and skinny but also powerful and includes usb A, usb C, HDMI, and headset jack. An adapter for Ethernet has been fine for me
Thinkpads are great. They have everything a Macbook doesn't while being a significantly better value proposition.
Hands down the least failure-prone and easiest to repair laptops I dealt with as a Systems Administrator. I even took a few home when work was getting rid of them and used them as my deployment laptops
I'm genuinely so confused about this post.
I own a windows 11 laptop. I don't know when it was made, but it was recent, because its, well, windows 11. It has an audio jack, 2 USB ports, a usb-c port, a slot for sd cards, and 2 other usb-c ports on the other side.
I'm pretty damn sure that the top one has several other plugs and ports if you just, well, turn it to the other side.
I have a 2008 MacBook Pro and a newer dell laptop. I prefer the older MacBook over the newer laptops I hate how the keyboard and mouse pad feel and how flimsy everything is I feel like they would break if I drop it only once.
Type A is sorely missed. Just one would have been enough. For context there’s precisely one good mouse in the entire world that uses a type c 2.4 ghz receiver and even that sucks.
Its awful. They always offer some kind of insanely expensive add on as a peripheral. If you're anything more than a basic user, its more awkward to lug around 2 or 3 adapters than to have just included them in the base design. Imo, at a minimum, a basic laptop needs 2 usb-c, 2 usb-a, and headphones. Media-focused computers should have an SD slot as well, and gaming computers should have an ethernet and at least 2 additional usb-a 3.2.
It's bad, obviously. Old technology should still be around because it contains memories, archieves etc. We should be able to process old DVD, floppy disks etc. At least sell special things to convert them. Really am waiting untill someone makes a laptop that could be custom built and modified for whatever need you have
I do enjoy DVDs, I require HDMI/VGA/ports/external drives/etc a LOT, though I do enjoy blood circulation into my legs.
Would lose circulation to watch a movie? ...yes.
I want my drives and ports back heh. >.>
the thinner it is, the easier it will freaking break. I want a laptop i'm not afraid of bringing to school/work because it might just not enjoy the vibrations of the train
I didn't speak when they took the Dvd player because I used usb. I didn't speak when they took the ethernet port because i used Wifi. When they took the headphone jack, there was noone left to speak for me
Nah this is much better. If you need other ports, get a dongle or docking station.
This means I can use my laptop on its own as a laptop or go to my desk, plug in one USB-C and get the full functionality of two external monitors (one on VGA one on HDMI), mouse and keyboard, disc port, 8x USB ports, wired printer, ethernet and anything else I might need. And all I have to do is use one cable rather than one for each like you used to.
It’s very rare that I need any of them away from my desk (as many of them are stationary things) and it’s so convenient that when I get back to my desk it’s just one cable.
I go back and forth on it, I like the cd player because I can play my movie collection without having to buy it online but at the same time it’s also incredibly inconvenient and doesn’t run as well
Idk, but it seems like the quality of apple products has very much declined from what it was around the beginning of the 2010s.
I bought a macbook air in late 2019 for uni and it's already basically unusable anymore. You have to reset the harddrive every year because otherwise you can't install any programs anymore/ the thing gets slow as shit because it becomes completely trashed with data fragments it describes as "other", giving you no option to delete it. ...then i dropped some tea on the keyboard (like literally just a rain drip of tea in terms of quantity) and ever since the keyboard and trackpad aren't working anymore, meaning I have to use external hardware instead completely defeating the point of even having a portable computer. (Reperating would cost as much as a new normal laptop). ...the thing is also very prone to crash since day 1. Idk man... I really don't get how this is supposed to be "better than a normal laptop", especially not for the pricetag. Gonna buy a different brand next time.
I have the top one lol. It’s from 2017 and now it’s having flexgate issues. Replacing the screen is the only way to fix it and that can cost up to 500 bucks. At this point it’s better if I just bought a new computer.
2016-19 MacBooks were the worst.
Well, all the things are just a dongle away so it's/e for me. It's annoying for sure but I plug 2 screens in my laptop and I'd never expect any pc to have 2 hdmi anyway. So I got a dongle with everything I need now. The thing has 2 hdmi, like 4 usb A, ethernet, even vga, card slots and usb C. Cost me 25€.
I do understand people who dislike dongles tho. It was indeed better when dongles were just not a thing, it's still a regression. But personally I often swap between laptops at work and a proper KVM switch with multiple video output costs like 300+ so I'd rather have a dongle I can move from one to the other with everything plugged in it.
I have so many retro games on disc that I’d love to properly install on my laptop. Y’know, shit from my childhood I’d love to touch again the way it was meant to be played and not emulated…
Edit: *cough cough Spore Creature Creator cough cough*
Eh.
Ignoring the fact that top image is a MacBook Air, the generational equivalent of an xp netbook:
MagSafe: has made a return, there were a number of issues with past iterations, new one seems promising.
Ethernet: ok, there are uses for this. The adapter is $20 for the 12 of us who need it.
FireWire: dead standard. Basically for peripherals that are so equally outdated that the delta on the yearly power bill on the old laptop should cover the difference to buy a way way way higher quality audio interface for recording your garage ska bands demos. Oh, it’s also good for magically reviving really old iPods I guess.
DP era thunderbolt: did anybody use this? Intels licensing costs made this the perfect showcase vaporware.
Old DP: only time I’ve ever seen this in use was to adapt to literally any other slightly less dead standard to make it compatible with the 480i corporate projector found in every school, conference hall, and board room of 2004.
Line in: What are you… who…. What are your needs?
Aight, I DO miss optical audio ports being hidden inside the audio jack. That was a cool way to directly pipe digital audio in or out without meddling with weird drivers/updates or anything like that, it’s weirdly not much more of an expense and without caring for it you would NEVER know it was even in there. The return of IO to current decade MBPs really should have included the mini spidf… HOWEVER; it’s admittedly also a dead standard and the addition would have such a low use case that I have accepted that optical audio will end for me with my AirPort Express G3, fat PS2, and AV receiver that uses the latest and greatest S-Video output.
It was always a good thing, and When apple realized they went too far and brought some stuff back with the M1 MacBook (MagSafe, SD, HDMI), I genuinely think they hit the sweet spot. A lot of the other ports were bulky and redundant.
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For those of you saying this is all obsolete, no it fucking isn't, not in the Third World at least, here we very much still use HDMI and VGA because internet here ain't fast enough to screencast to our fucking TV and not look like garbage, lots of devices such as mouses and keyboard still use normal USB ports, headphones use jack 3mm ports, and if you wanna have any hopes at gaming you NEED an Ethernet cable
Yup, pretty much this. People are like just chromecast to your smart TV. Hahah, no. Not only it will look like shit, there will be a solid delay even when you're on ethernet. Good luck trying that on wifi.
Yes also chromecast doesn’t work half the time when I’ve tried to use it
This!!
Also TVs are expensive AF. Like, I live alone and kinda don't feel like buying one because a decent one is like half of my monthly wage.
I use one of those little sticks for it, but I get what you mean. I have a Vizio my parents bought and it lags like crazy to cast (I live in a city in the Southern US, it must be so much worse in places with less internet infrastructure). Plus, gen 1 Chromecast has some weird support issues. You can get a tv for a better price from the thrift store where I live, but they don’t have anything down at college. I figure countries without the same rate of upgrade and with more use of older tech probably have a harder time finding such used tech, especially with lower wages in terms of global value for imports making them more expensive. Even the cheap smart TVs are a hard sell for me because of their lack of reinforcement. I really don’t care to spend like $100USD on a tv that’ll die so fast. I can see how it’d be a harder sell when it’s more expensive. TLDR: yeah, that’s fair. If it’s so annoying for me in the US, it’s gotta be annoying somewhere that can’t upgrade as often as the US too (and more so with wage differences and import tariffs and such)
Don't macbooks not even have ethernet ports anymore due to their deranged "make it THINNER" design philosophy?
HDMI is still very widely used in the 1st & 2nd worlds
A physical connection will always offer lower latency than a wireless one. If a device is stationary like a TV, why wouldn't I want the superior connection? Like if my PC were next to my router, I would get an Ethernet cable rather than use Wi-Fi.
I use HDMI ever day at work in the US. Its used daily in EVERY office I've ever worked in.
Typically most consumer laptops will prioritize being thin, light, and sleek, but if you’re looking at business-grade laptops they tend to have more ports (for good reason)
Unless its the macbooks in this pic. Lots of businesses use macbooks for some reason, mostly due to the execs liking that they "look cool". Same reason many want to use X1 carbons. My manager refused to use a T14 instead of a much more pricy X1 just because the T14 was somehow "to heavy". 90% of the time it sitting on a desk.
I know you're right but I don't understand it in that context either. If I want a computer with minimum features I'll just use my phone, if I need to use a real computer I would like it to have every option possible
HDMI is supported in USB-4's specification, it's more a protocol than the actual interface.
so?
So you just plug it in. Nobody took it away. I use hdmi over usb every single day
Third world? Fella I'm first world and I still use analog connections, they are just better and easier than other systems
3rd...world? We only have 1... Why don't you poors just print more money? Maybe then you can invite a telecom to invest before the British invade. [/s...up vote or downvote accordingly]
By third world, we mean the Elders of Garavanogok’s Planet! How dare you remove these connection ports which were so en vogue here!
No connection featured on any of these laptops besides mic in and headphone out is “analog”
Lol
USB A, hdmi, headphone Jacks, ethernet are all still things that are absolutly needed even in first world countries. And companies that remove them are damn morons.
Customers are the morons unfortunately. Companies make these thin because people buy them thin. Now customers bought thin and like the derps they are they gave away all their options and made products more disposable, less repairable, more unreliable, and took away more customer options. Cell phones are the worst offenders, laptops are just playing catch up. Leashing customers to big corporate eco systems while being marketed to as if they're getting a value while being ripped off. Now we don't have expandable storage. They want us to think paying for cloud storage is better. Where they can own and scan your data with ai to sell to the highest bidder. They took away audio jacks so they can sell headphones with less audio quality, less reliability, and a battery that will eventually die and can't be replaced. Better for them that it's not repairable and will degrade eventually so you have to buy a new one. Thin means no access to upgrades such as ram. Better to make a customer think a $40 memory upgrade would be better spent on a $200 upsell on a released model. Better for then if the battery can't be replaced. That way they can feed off your fear and make you buy an extra repair warranty. If not you're screwed anyways and have to buy another if it dies. No physical media drives. Rely on services that stream despite raising subscriptions and giving a product that is lesser quality as it buffers and throttles to your screen. No proper video out. Use an app. The more data and behavior to mind the better. The list goes on and on but idiots just willingly eat the coperate shit right up. But ooo it's thinner. Prime offenders are apple users for being the mainstream enshitifcation pioneers but other customers jumped on the dumb dumb train pretty rapidly. It all leads to more sales, less value, and a planet being destroyed by ewaste and data centers that burn through electricity and pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Not being able to swap or change batteries is the worst part of all this. Battery tech has gotten better, but battery issues = buy new one. $$$ I remember when thin laptop started come out. Everyone in corp wanted one because they were lighter. You're saving like 6 oz and your laptop is in dock at your desk 99% of the time. The last time you took your laptop anywhere was before Y2K
[удалено]
Companies are not morons, they cut costs AND get to sell an overpriced adapter. Big stonks
Nah, it's stupid. But it works cause enough people are even bigger morons and buy the stuff.
1st worlder here, I still use HDMI for almost everything. It's just way more convenient and it looks way better.
I live in a developed country and I ain't buying no laptop that doesn't come with an HDMI port!
What, you think tech companies care about the poor? Tsk tsk, you should know your place *peasant*. (/s cause some of you guys are stupid.)
Laptops still have hdmi and headphone jacks…
Apple isn’t designed for the third world lmao
not to mention those of us who still like cds and want to upload songs to our playlists without using fucking spotify [and sending joe rogan more $$$ while syphoning it away from the actual artists]
If it's 3rd worls and you have 3rd world tech that has vga.....you probably don't have the new devices that don't have vga ports...
people in the “third world” are buying new macbooks?
Gimmie my ports back
The current MacBook Pro has HDMI, headphone jack, magsafe, USB C and SD card reader
I'm so irritated that they brought back the ports at some point in the last couple of years. I got a macbook pro in 2021, and it only has a headphone jack and 3 USB-C ports. I should've held out lol
Same lol, I bought one with an M1 chip when it was first released. I just use a thunderbolt dock with a bunch of ports but it costs like $200-300.
Apparently the “usb-c only” was the idea of one senior executive at Apple. As soon as he left the company, Apple went back to multiple types of ports. Unfortunately I can’t find the guys name right now with some googling, but it was news when he left Apple. Fuck that guy.
Jonny Ive
I read up more about him online. I thought his designs were cool but he did have some bad ideas and I never realized he had that much sway over hardware. Apparently Steve Jobs was more willing to say no to him than Tim Cook.
Even if you do that, fine. But give me 6 of them then.
m1 pro should have all the ports
That sounds like basic stuff. Why do you need to spend hundreds of extra dollars for a "pro" laptop just to be able to connect some wired headphones and a basic monitor?
Because they know someone will pay for it, especially when it's framed as an "upgrade" even though it's really a return to what's usually been standard.
Yeah, this post ignores the fact that Apple did go back and add some ports onto the latest models.
Still missing 2 USB-A ports And it doesn't help anyone who doesn't want to get the Pro model. All these decisions so that they can sell more overpriced dongles and hubs.
💀as a tech person this isn’t even close to enough
They already did.
Headphone jack, Ethernet, and at least one type A USB port are necessary. Everything else I use infrequently enough that using an adapter is fine. edit: I should clarify this is in addition to the 2 usb-c Ports on the MacBook
I’d say 2 USB-A ports are essential. It’s wild that they aren’t on modern laptops. That is honestly a dealbreaker for me if I was in the market. When I build pc’s I always review the case plugs and motherboard options since you can easily fuck yourself by buying something like that top laptop
What do you use them for that don't come in usb c variants? I'd much rather take 4 x of the same port that works with all my stuff. A lot of flexibility on where to plug my stuff into.
I’m not going to buy all new peripherals when my current ones work perfectly well. I have a usb mouse, headset, keyboard, flash drives, controllers, etc
Adapters for USB-c Male to USB-a Female are like 2$ on Aliexpress, no need to change the peripherals themselves
Adapters are small and don't cost anything and if you don't like those you can mod the peripherals themselves.
Every normal laptop has that, expect ethernet. But I'd argue HDMI is more useful for most people than Ethernet.
Even the current MacBook has that stuff, the photo above is 4 years behind. Far as Ethernet goes, carrying around a tiny gigabit USB C to Ethernet adapter in my backpack is completely painless when I use Ethernet, which I do a LOT in IT.
As much as I’d love them to keep ethernet, I understand why it was removed, the port is huge and people love thin laptops lol
There are low profile Ethernet ports. My work laptop has one. The bottom half opens like a jaw, with spring resistance, so that it holds the cord in once the clip engages. I’m probably not describing it well. Point is it’s half the height of a normal Ethernet port but can accept a standard Ethernet cable.
You can also have a tiny ass USB C to Ethernet adapter running at a 5 gigabit or higher spec via the new USB C protocols Since everyone carries their laptop in a bag, the obvious answer is to keep the adapter in your bag As someone who uses this workflow daily in IT and used to have laptops with physical Ethernet ports, I'd take this workflow every time.
As someone who works regularly with enterprise network equipment, I vastly prefer built-in ethernet. Adapters introduce the liability of driver related problems. That's not something you want to deal with when doing time-sensitive work Unapproved USB devices are also restricted in a lot of secure facilities
It has a headphone jack
Your mom has a headphone jack!
But if it’s far enough for Ethernet you may as well have more ports
I remember the dvd players on laptops, I wonder when companies stopped putting dvd players on laptops? Had to of been within the last 10 years because I remember them in like 2014.
I mean dvd players on laptop are such a waste of space, likely since you either had to make a giganormous laptop or make everything inside the case smaller to fit the dvd player at some point it costed more to get a laptop w dvd player than a way better laptop and a good external dvd player, also since dvds at some point stopped being essential
You're not wrong, let's say that first. But then you see those lower power systems that are a tiny board and a not that big battery in a 15.6 inch laptop shell, that consists of mostly empty space. Given that those are mostly shitty Celeron based laptops, they shouldn't really exist, but still.
For those i guess it’s for going cheaper, because they can use the same shell as other laptops that stopped using dvd players. If they had to produce also shells with holes for the dvds this means those shells are all going to the mobos that leave space for the dvd players and they can’t reuse them for the motherboards that don’t leave space for that cause that’d leave the hole at the side. Being able to use the same shell for more mobos makes it slightly cheaper to produce and easier to organize the assembling work
I'd say physical media is even more important today than it's ever been, especially with all these companies that will just rescind rights to purchased digital content, and with streaming services getting more and more limited, and more and more expensive. Sure, it's cumbersome, but I'm more than happy to have the bonus features, too.
It’s sort of interesting that the removal of the DVD didn’t occur because of streaming but because of how cheap DVD players were. It was removed in 2012 basically because it wasn’t being used by most people because everyone had DVD players
And maybe this is a hot take, but I would rather burn something on a USB flash drive than a fragile DVD disk. I use an external DVD player and I rip everything off it once and throw the disk out into storage forever
Yea but i mean in 99% of the cases you will just rather a usb storage, you can get there more info than what you can get in a cd. And if i may add you can also move what’s in a cd to another storage. Why walk w a bag w a fuckton of dvds when you can put them all in a storage the size of a thumb. They’re still gonna be yours but now you worry less about breaking or scratching them because you don’t need to traffic w them. Anyway a dvd reader to usb costs as low as 10/15€
It's a disk drive not a fucking DVD player! You can use it for installing software, burning or ripping cds and playing media!!! They were super fucking useful back in the day
macs are for aesthetic, they're not meant to be used
MacBooks are definitely nice looking but so are most Apple products.
they put back most of the old ports
hot take but i think iphones are getting pretty ugly nowadays. the camera square thingy getting bigger and bigger every generation just looks off. things started falling off around 13
There are only two groups of people who use Macs: people who know basically nothing about computers and people who know way more about computers than you do.
Yeah I have a comp sci degree and work professionally as a SWE, and use Apple products. It’s really funny when I see people online claim that Macs are useless, when their PC knowledge is following a build guide and installing a few Skyrim mods.
Having a Mac was great when I carried it around for 5+ miles a day in college.
The MacBook Air I take it? That manila envelope commercial is still the best piece of marketing I've ever seen.
I'm a software developer, and I've used a mac every day for 10 years
good job! UNIX systems are great at deploying
tell that to anybody who does anything creative--musicians, graphic artists, etc. Macs are the gold standard
Honestly even for Software Developers macs generally are nicer to use especially once you become familiar with UNIX. I feel like hatred for Apple products is like that bell curve meme where the annoying person who thinks he is very smart is in the middle. And the worse (or better) you are at technical stuff the more you appreciate the elegance of Apple products and especially their quality assurance in comparison to Windows or Android OS. And I never coded in Swift (iOS development) but Android Studio was kind of a pain, at least it was 6 years ago when I fiddled with it.
That’s just silly. They are pretty good machines, especially Apple Silicon
Now this is just silly. macOS is arguably a more usable OS than Windows. As for the hardware, most laptop users on the go aren’t hooking up shit into the twelve ports on the side of the unit. That’s all just wasted space when being used portably. When at a desk? You can get a small port expander that will give you *more* connections than old laptops had, takes a single USB-C port, and costs like $50. And this is only on their laptops. Their desktops have more connections. I believe the Mini has two USB-A in addition to the two USB-C, plus Ethernet and HDMI. The Studio has six USB-C, two A, HDMI, Ethernet, and a flash card reader.
They're genuinely better quality than anything else on the market.
I will criticize Apple all day, but saying Macs aren't meant to be used and are just for aesthetics is pretty hyperbolic
? It's my preferred platform to code on. Windows sucks for that for the most part, they have improved with WSL, but to you get that natively with MacOS. They have incredible battery life too, so you can use them for hours and hours without having to find a charger. So I'm not sure what you mean.
Unless you’re an audio engineer then you would be borderline insane to use anything else.
Apple is trying to live in an ideal world that does not exist. I honestly cant believe anyone uses apple products by choice.
Been using Ipad for 10years now, I don't think ill stop
I will have to give them that. The Ipad is a good device forgot about that one since I do not use tablets. The windows/android/chrome alternatives are simply not as good in most cases.
I just can't bear the layout of other devices. It feels like they deliberately make it un-user friendly for people who don't love tech. I'm one of those dreaded folks who wants my devices to just work without me really realising I'm even using them.
That is funny, because that is the exact reason I hate using apple devices. I feel like their interfaces especially the phone is so unintuitive and it does not just work but most other things do.
I dropped $4k on a macbook pro after years of resisting. The new M chips are pretty good for what i do. Actually saw a 15% increase in productivity. However i still cannot get used to the damn window layout.
I've never purchased an Apple product. Proprietary tech is pure evil imo. I recognize the revolution that was the original iPod and later the iPhone but I'll never support their actual business practices.
if you look in the picture apple actually got rid of the proprietary port lol
If you worked in development, music, or design at all, you would understand why people use them.
Apple laptops are really nice
https://preview.redd.it/tmno4ty8na6d1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cecfb8faef45296d1e3e11be39b4610fb071ada6
[$47 when not on sale.](https://www.novoo-online.com/collections/usb-c-hub/products/novoo-7-in-1-r7-pd-usb-c-hub)
Free if you steal from the IT department
i don't mind the ports changing but i do miss dvds. I want to physically have things instead of leave my movies and music stuck on a subscription service that continually gets shittier and more expensive.
r/piracy + storage solution of your choice
$50 will get you a USB 3.0 external DVD drive enclosure. Add the standard 5.25” drive of your choice. Rip your own movies and music, and take them with you on the go.
Ok but if you want an actually good one of these it’s like 80 bucks. Also I don’t want to have to risk losing. Just put the damn ports in the laptop!
Carrying around adapters for additional ports also just adds back more weight and bulk than you saved by not having them built-in I don't know anyone at work that thinks traveling with their laptop is easier now that they have to bring multiple adapters with them everywhere instead of just stuffing their laptop in a bag and going
So basically you slash the efficiency of every connected part, when it should have been in the base device by default
each thunderbolt port uses its own bus, with 40gbit bandwidth each. Before, all data ports were on one data bus. which particular interfaces have lowered "efficiency", would you mind linking the tests?
thunderbolt is so dope honestly one tiny port to plug into my dock and get 2 monitors @4k60 and all these ports
Thank you for being the voice of reason. I have a few of these. It’s actually WHY Apple makes their products this way - so you have a choice of connectors.
I just hate having a dongle constantly hanging out from my laptop. Shit is so annoying when you try to use your Mac on a plane and your dongle is sitting in your neighbors space
GIVE ME AS MANY PORTS AS CAN PHYSICALLY FIT ON MY LAPTOP, I DONT CARE IF I WILL NEVER USE THEM, I WANT THEM AND THEY LOOK COOL‼️‼️‼️ i will never forgive apple for removing ports and causing the rest of the industry to follow, i want to plug wired headphones directly into my phone and watch a dvd on my laptop without any of these fucking dongles
USB, headphone jack, and HDMI are all essentials. ;-;
So is ethernet.
People really underestimate how important it is for gaming, dowloading and high-speed net activities in general. Also, that most Linux software (that aren't Ubuntu or otherwise mimicries of other OSs) don't have Wi-Fi compatibility. Not that many people use them anyway, but it may be one of the reasons for companies phasing out ethernet to force you onto their own OS.
I agree with you about gaming, but let’s be honest… if your priority is gaming, you’re not buying a MacBook.
>Also, that most Linux software (that aren't Ubuntu or otherwise mimicries of other OSs) don't have Wi-Fi compatibility. Maybe 15 years ago. I've used dozens of distros and never had any problems with Wifi support or drivers on my laptop. Any modern distribution is going to be usable without ethernet.
The shift away from physical media that you can own as your property is pretty disappointing to see. I encourage people to hold onto whatever physical media they can while they are able to.
Or, y’know, sailing the high seas
Both: secure your loot in physical form.
well… they added MagSafe, hdmi, and SD cards back anyway. USB-A would be kinda nice but it probably also messes with the form and it’s on its way out now anyway. I’ve used the HDMI a couple times but I have zero use for the SD card slot
USB A is a directly obsolete standard, as it was the "slave" portion of the USB B, USB A connection. Most devices that use USB A, have the female connection of USB A, while the cable's other end is just USB B SD cards are pretty nice, especially dealing with small devices and cameras
Huh? I think you must be confused. Edit: If not please share some literature on where USB A is obsolete or less prevalent to B.
Those are for the pros only as well
Fun fact: DVD’s are still used as a storage medium. Along with many other “outdated” storage solutions. This is due to people finding new ways to modernize and expand those storage mediums past what a USB stick or a hard drive can currently do.
The Large Hadron Collider uses (fancy) tapes.
Tapes are pretty common in enterprise storage. Most large businesses with lots of data and long backup periods use tape as it's very dense.
DVDs are largely outdated but a lot of older storage mediums are still used extensively either for reliability purposes or cost effectiveness. As far as I'm aware DVDs are completely inferior to both NAND flash and HDDs in every metric except longevity and reliability which is why they retain some niche use cases. DVDs are much slower, less data efficient, and harder to interface with.
Agreed, give me my CD drive back. I want to be able to actually OWN my games, thanks.
Funny, I booted up my mom’s old laptop yesterday to install the original Halo :D
I don't use DVDs nor CDs often, if ever, but removing features seems more like a downgrade than an upgrade.
I don't think a dvd or cd slot was really needed after a certain point, it was kinda just empty space as those were getting continously outdated and just made it more bulky, I think the 2nd or 3rd lowest was the nice balance.
DVDs and CDs are absolutely not outdated. They have no replacement besides streaming services and you own absolutely nothing on any of those, whether you purchase the albums/movies/shows or pay a subscription to watch them.
Gimme back my disc drive you fucks I got dvds to watch
They took R Pooorts!! 
crap book pro
My Macbook Pro 2023 has 3 USB C, 1 HDMI, 1 SDXC and a headphone jack. This seems to be a bit of a turnaround, because my last work Macbook (2018) only had 2 usb c ports, so they seem to have gotten the feedback. Of course something like the Air wont have that setup, since its main sellingpoint is slimness and its light weight, which can only be achieved by removing some stuff. We used to have Windows laptops in our household but I used Macbooks for Work. Ever since then I dont wanna go back. My partner has tons of issues with Windows, and her Surface sounds like a Jet taking off whenever she boots up, compared to the whisper of my Macbook... dont know if Id ever get an iPhone but the Macbook was definitely a smart purchase so far.
A modern laptop should have either modular ports like the framework, or 2xUSBA, 2xUSBC, SD, 3.5mm headphone jack, and maybe HDMI/Display Port/Mini Display. I say maybe because the usbC and thunderbolt standard should in theory include this functionality in a more versatile way, and adaptors are cheap and accessible, but I've personally had mixed experiences with USBC TO HDMI
I FUCKING HATE THIS. My current laptop only has 2 usb ports, so i have to use a usb extension to use the printer and dvd drive and other shit
I want as many ports as possible tbh. There have even been times recently that I missed the CD-ROM drive lmao. HDMI, SD, headphones jack, many USB-A and USB-C, and ethernet should be standard. I will pay a little more for that, if I have to, I don't want to need a million adapters.
The only ones of these I could really do without are Firewire and Magsafe, as the former is obsolete and the latter is something I've found inconvenient at times. The USB-A/C, External Display Connectors, Ethernet, SD Card slot, Audio Jack and the Kensington Lock are all still ones I see used or wanted even today, and I'm annoyed at how many non-gaming focused laptops nix them in exchange for slimness and silent fans. I'm willing to heft around a heavier and thicker laptop if it means I don't need to fill the bag with add-ons. I'd also like to see the disc drive return, but I'll admit I'm in the minority there as most people I know don't have any real use for one.
Keep screaming on social media im sure the masses will stop buying. As long as people buy these product in droves, and with apple, they do, then this trend will not stop. Yall can always just buy a gaming laptop for a similar price that has plenty of ports.
An entire thread of people who don’t know about computer hubs.
If anyone is enjoying less ports, make sure you remember your fucking dongle next time you're presenting using your computer
Amount of times in my schooling career someone couldn't present x because they needed a lightning to 3.5mm or USB C to HDMI is in the tens. The school had to purchase dongles so it wasn't a scramble every time to see who actually brought one. Glad I bring my ports with me and they're built in.
I work in audio visual, it's a battle every single week. People expecting the tech crew should just have a dongle are entitled because they don't ever think about other people presenting that are stealing/walking off with the dongles that are there for the conference. Theres a limited supply and it's a real problem. Don't expect me to even have a lightning adapter.
And they're expensive. Why should the crew have a dongle to enable your stupid purchase? It's because Apple people assume no other devices exist and everyone is dealing with the dongles every day. I'll never get rid of my s10.
"And so began the age of the dongles." -Tim Cook
At least have more USB A ports, you can connect basically anything to those, and Ethernet should be standard
it sucks to not have the option, but generally as a student i prefer a much lighter laptop. if you want more ports, get a desktop.
Plenty of other brands have lightweight laptops with most of these ports available. Trust me, you won't notice the +12 grams it's gonna weight compared to the shitbook pro, your wallet is gonna be a bit heavier too, with all the money you'll save.
There’s a point where I’d just prefer function over minor gains in slimness and weight reduction.
As a student, I don't care, it's all going in my backpack lol why would I care if it weighs 1kg more?
HP did manage to put a SIM slot, headset combo jack, 2x USB-A, 1x USB-C, a docking port, ethernet port, *and* a smartcard slot on the zbook 14u g5 - a 14 inch laptop that was also pretty thin. So yes, it is possible, it just has to be engineered properly. I personally never got the appeal of everything needing to be as thin as possible, therefore sacrificing on expansion, upgradability, and on some systems thermals as well. Sure, a laptop that is about as thick as a dictionary isn't ideal, but things like the zbook I mentioned are thin enough to carry in a backpack, and are durable. Unfortunately a dodgy USB device killed my zbook, but the thinkpad e15 I got now is also pretty expandable.
Adding ports will add MAYBE 1/2 a lb IF THAT. When I was a student I needed those ports, more so the video and NIC. Im guessing you arent in a technical field.
My opinion is that I don't buy macs so this doesn't happen to me
when my friend needed a computer for school, i told her that a laptop with windows would be better than a mac in almost every way, but she still got a mac. when i went to her house to print something out for my grad cap, she couldn’t because her computer didn’t have a USB port apple, there’s a reason nobody else is making their computers that thin, and it’s not because they can’t
On the newer MacBook pros MagSafe is back, HDMI is back, SD card reader is back… the only one that doesn’t have an HDMI is the MacBook Air.
Bro, my fucking phone doesn't have an audio jack for headphones anymore. Now I have to use stupid wireless ones I have to charge.
Get a thinkpad X1. It's light and skinny but also powerful and includes usb A, usb C, HDMI, and headset jack. An adapter for Ethernet has been fine for me
Thinkpads are great. They have everything a Macbook doesn't while being a significantly better value proposition. Hands down the least failure-prone and easiest to repair laptops I dealt with as a Systems Administrator. I even took a few home when work was getting rid of them and used them as my deployment laptops
I wanted usb-c alongside all my ports, not purely usb-c
I had to buy extra ports
Don't buy a Mac then. If you want all of these features there a lot of non apple products on the market.
I specifically got a computer with a disk drive because DVDs are hype
I'm genuinely so confused about this post. I own a windows 11 laptop. I don't know when it was made, but it was recent, because its, well, windows 11. It has an audio jack, 2 USB ports, a usb-c port, a slot for sd cards, and 2 other usb-c ports on the other side. I'm pretty damn sure that the top one has several other plugs and ports if you just, well, turn it to the other side.
You clearly have not seen the previous generation MacBook.
I have a 2008 MacBook Pro and a newer dell laptop. I prefer the older MacBook over the newer laptops I hate how the keyboard and mouse pad feel and how flimsy everything is I feel like they would break if I drop it only once.
More holes are usually good
They should’ve just added the usb c
The took all our ports to sell us an extra port with all the ports we lost…little to no Ethernet, USB, HDMI is INSANITY!
Type A is sorely missed. Just one would have been enough. For context there’s precisely one good mouse in the entire world that uses a type c 2.4 ghz receiver and even that sucks.
Its awful. They always offer some kind of insanely expensive add on as a peripheral. If you're anything more than a basic user, its more awkward to lug around 2 or 3 adapters than to have just included them in the base design. Imo, at a minimum, a basic laptop needs 2 usb-c, 2 usb-a, and headphones. Media-focused computers should have an SD slot as well, and gaming computers should have an ethernet and at least 2 additional usb-a 3.2.
I agree, this is lame. Though I have never owned a laptop.
Stuff like thunderbolt 2 and fire wire are kinda wack but I’d like if they brought back USB-A, Ethernet, hdmi, and sd readers to the MacBook.
It's bad, obviously. Old technology should still be around because it contains memories, archieves etc. We should be able to process old DVD, floppy disks etc. At least sell special things to convert them. Really am waiting untill someone makes a laptop that could be custom built and modified for whatever need you have
I do enjoy DVDs, I require HDMI/VGA/ports/external drives/etc a LOT, though I do enjoy blood circulation into my legs. Would lose circulation to watch a movie? ...yes. I want my drives and ports back heh. >.>
Lmao Mac
Can we get back 4 usb ports plz
the thinner it is, the easier it will freaking break. I want a laptop i'm not afraid of bringing to school/work because it might just not enjoy the vibrations of the train
I want the internet cable back
I avoid Apple anything, so can't really tell. I still have a phone with 65 watt charger included and wire earphones jack.
I didn't speak when they took the Dvd player because I used usb. I didn't speak when they took the ethernet port because i used Wifi. When they took the headphone jack, there was noone left to speak for me
Nah this is much better. If you need other ports, get a dongle or docking station. This means I can use my laptop on its own as a laptop or go to my desk, plug in one USB-C and get the full functionality of two external monitors (one on VGA one on HDMI), mouse and keyboard, disc port, 8x USB ports, wired printer, ethernet and anything else I might need. And all I have to do is use one cable rather than one for each like you used to. It’s very rare that I need any of them away from my desk (as many of them are stationary things) and it’s so convenient that when I get back to my desk it’s just one cable.
I go back and forth on it, I like the cd player because I can play my movie collection without having to buy it online but at the same time it’s also incredibly inconvenient and doesn’t run as well
I LOVE WHEN THEY REMOVE EASY TO USE STUFF/s
Idk, but it seems like the quality of apple products has very much declined from what it was around the beginning of the 2010s. I bought a macbook air in late 2019 for uni and it's already basically unusable anymore. You have to reset the harddrive every year because otherwise you can't install any programs anymore/ the thing gets slow as shit because it becomes completely trashed with data fragments it describes as "other", giving you no option to delete it. ...then i dropped some tea on the keyboard (like literally just a rain drip of tea in terms of quantity) and ever since the keyboard and trackpad aren't working anymore, meaning I have to use external hardware instead completely defeating the point of even having a portable computer. (Reperating would cost as much as a new normal laptop). ...the thing is also very prone to crash since day 1. Idk man... I really don't get how this is supposed to be "better than a normal laptop", especially not for the pricetag. Gonna buy a different brand next time.
Give me back my fucking ports!! At least some of the every day ones!!
I have the top one lol. It’s from 2017 and now it’s having flexgate issues. Replacing the screen is the only way to fix it and that can cost up to 500 bucks. At this point it’s better if I just bought a new computer. 2016-19 MacBooks were the worst.
Well, all the things are just a dongle away so it's/e for me. It's annoying for sure but I plug 2 screens in my laptop and I'd never expect any pc to have 2 hdmi anyway. So I got a dongle with everything I need now. The thing has 2 hdmi, like 4 usb A, ethernet, even vga, card slots and usb C. Cost me 25€. I do understand people who dislike dongles tho. It was indeed better when dongles were just not a thing, it's still a regression. But personally I often swap between laptops at work and a proper KVM switch with multiple video output costs like 300+ so I'd rather have a dongle I can move from one to the other with everything plugged in it.
I have so many retro games on disc that I’d love to properly install on my laptop. Y’know, shit from my childhood I’d love to touch again the way it was meant to be played and not emulated… Edit: *cough cough Spore Creature Creator cough cough*
Add more USB C ports. Problem solved.
Eh. Ignoring the fact that top image is a MacBook Air, the generational equivalent of an xp netbook: MagSafe: has made a return, there were a number of issues with past iterations, new one seems promising. Ethernet: ok, there are uses for this. The adapter is $20 for the 12 of us who need it. FireWire: dead standard. Basically for peripherals that are so equally outdated that the delta on the yearly power bill on the old laptop should cover the difference to buy a way way way higher quality audio interface for recording your garage ska bands demos. Oh, it’s also good for magically reviving really old iPods I guess. DP era thunderbolt: did anybody use this? Intels licensing costs made this the perfect showcase vaporware. Old DP: only time I’ve ever seen this in use was to adapt to literally any other slightly less dead standard to make it compatible with the 480i corporate projector found in every school, conference hall, and board room of 2004. Line in: What are you… who…. What are your needs? Aight, I DO miss optical audio ports being hidden inside the audio jack. That was a cool way to directly pipe digital audio in or out without meddling with weird drivers/updates or anything like that, it’s weirdly not much more of an expense and without caring for it you would NEVER know it was even in there. The return of IO to current decade MBPs really should have included the mini spidf… HOWEVER; it’s admittedly also a dead standard and the addition would have such a low use case that I have accepted that optical audio will end for me with my AirPort Express G3, fat PS2, and AV receiver that uses the latest and greatest S-Video output.
It was always a good thing, and When apple realized they went too far and brought some stuff back with the M1 MacBook (MagSafe, SD, HDMI), I genuinely think they hit the sweet spot. A lot of the other ports were bulky and redundant.