This is my ~8 month old work laptop.
Is a Dell.
2 usb c not pictured.
You have options.
The apple bois wont appreciate this
As long as you’re not an apple cult member you do.
Apple brought back the mag charger.
I wish it still had the SD reader and one A port, but it doesn’t really come up that often. Just 3D printing and only because I’m too lazy to set up a octoprint server or whatever.
MBPs all have HDMI and SD slots… but Definitely set up the octopi with a cheap webcam. I’ve run one for years now and it’s so nice to be able to kick off and check on prints from my phone. Not to mention it doesn’t matter what computer I slice on and the files are small enough that I have gcode for almost everything I’ve printed for instant access to reprint whenever.
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Nobody uses a firewire cable anymore, USB-A/B is very outdated.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)
I really don’t think it’s that stupid. Your particular machine has a lot of ports, yeah. But there are plenty of machines out there, like the 12-inch non-pro macbook, that have ONE USB-C PORT and absolutely no other ports. That’s clearly limiting. Like, you can connect it to ethernet, if you buy an additional USB-C ethernet adapter, but if you want to be able to ethernet and have it connected to power at the same time, you need to buy a special power brick that combines the two functions, because they didn’t include any other ports.
Plus, there are a bunch of things that still use USB-A. I’ve got a bunch of old thumb drives that work like that, especially for transferring video files to my TV, which only supports USB-A itself. Wireless dongles for mice and game controllers, which still offer a latency advantage over bluetooth, tend to be USB-A as well. I’ve also got a wearable pulse oximeter that requires a special cable to load data, and the other end of that cable is USB-A only. Again, you can get an adapter dongle, but that’s never as convenient as just having the right port in the first place.
I went a bit out of my way to get a laptop with a decent collection of ports (and it’s a bit of a less portable laptop as a result, maybe more like a desktop replacement), but even it has for some reason dropped the SD card reader, which I would have used a lot. I had to get a dongle for that. And I had to get one that used USB-C in particular, because my USB-A ports are usually both filled.
Basically the selection of ports used to be something that laptops used as a point of differentiation and pride in a crowded market; but Apple managed to invert this, making the prestige marker having a slimmer laptop with as few ports as possible, and that was a dumb change. I do think the pendulum is swinging back, as with your Pro macbook, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be frustrated with the way this element of the market went in such a consumer-hostile direction for a while.
Oh sure, they didn’t take away everything. The weight stayed.
Enjoy your dongle hell.
I dunno - I’m pretty sure I’d choose the modern MacBook Pro’s ports over any of these other options.
An ethernet port is essential for any computer.
Power, HDMI, a few USBs, and headphones, all you’ll ever likely need.
There’s no doubt a dongle for anything else.
SD card reader is nice to have if you fuck around with cameras and microphones.
If you got that kind of money to spend on a laptop, sure. I really don’t.
Edit: to be clear, I know this is a stack of Mac’s in OPs picture, but the development that the entry models have basically no ports at all is a more recent development. Having to pick the pro just to be able to connect your stuff without dongles or hubs is a bit insane considering the price (and price difference).
We’re mindlessly bashing Apple here, we don’t need your sensible reasoning!
Continue bashing, they use apple maths and only have ports on expensive models.
Where do you see Apple bashing? Most comments are about the general state of notebook ports.
From my personal experience Apple products aren’t as great as the fanboys claim but are far far better than they haters say they are.
Back pain?