Parallel Empires
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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.
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That crumbling column is actually so cool.
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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.
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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!
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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?
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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.
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Man, I still lament their destruction of the aux (headphone) port. They destroyed that for the entire industry.
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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.
Like this?
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I might be in the minority here, but I'm perfectly happy with the USB-C only setup. My work laptop is a Dell, but has the same design as that top Mac with just two Thunderbolt ports on each side of the chassis.
Headphones? Bluetooth. My machine actually has a headphone jack, which I have not used once since receiving it.
RS-232? That's also Bluetooth, not as if USB-C to RJ45 serial console cables aren't widely available though.
Ethernet? Well in the rare event I need one of those it's more often going to be a Thunderbolt SFP+ adapter because most of my work is with fibre. In the rare event it is copper I'm quite often needing to use two at once, so would need at least one dongle even if the machine did have a port built in.
HDMI? Well you can buy a tiny adapter (about the size of a book of matches) that has a USB-C socket on one side and a HDMI plug on the other (about $13 on Amazon: https://i.imgur.com/iwmsa4L.jpeg). I already have to have a USB-C to USB-C cable in the bag for charging, it can do double-duty as a video cable.
The trick is to be smart about the dongles you do carry. The predominant style with a short cable terminating in a bulky body with whatever socket on it is almost always the worst style, sitting right next to your laptop getting in the way of whatever you're trying to do.
The biggest advantage though is having USB-C ports on BOTH sides of the machine, so the charger can plug in on either side. I think people have forgotten how much it sucked not being able to do that. You'd be surprised how many machines that have a 50-50 collection of USB-C and other ports put all the USB-C ports on one side so they're never in the location you need them to be.
Fully aware this isn't going to work for everyone, but people really need to stop pretending like it only has downsides because that absolutely isn't the case.
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Someone should make a movie series of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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I agree with every point you made except the headphone jack, there are still plenty of wired headphones around, and the cost and size of having one in the laptop is negligible.
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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.
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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?
I'm a normal dude and with the exception of FireWire, I have used and require each and everyone of those connections.
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I might be in the minority here, but I'm perfectly happy with the USB-C only setup. My work laptop is a Dell, but has the same design as that top Mac with just two Thunderbolt ports on each side of the chassis.
Headphones? Bluetooth. My machine actually has a headphone jack, which I have not used once since receiving it.
RS-232? That's also Bluetooth, not as if USB-C to RJ45 serial console cables aren't widely available though.
Ethernet? Well in the rare event I need one of those it's more often going to be a Thunderbolt SFP+ adapter because most of my work is with fibre. In the rare event it is copper I'm quite often needing to use two at once, so would need at least one dongle even if the machine did have a port built in.
HDMI? Well you can buy a tiny adapter (about the size of a book of matches) that has a USB-C socket on one side and a HDMI plug on the other (about $13 on Amazon: https://i.imgur.com/iwmsa4L.jpeg). I already have to have a USB-C to USB-C cable in the bag for charging, it can do double-duty as a video cable.
The trick is to be smart about the dongles you do carry. The predominant style with a short cable terminating in a bulky body with whatever socket on it is almost always the worst style, sitting right next to your laptop getting in the way of whatever you're trying to do.
The biggest advantage though is having USB-C ports on BOTH sides of the machine, so the charger can plug in on either side. I think people have forgotten how much it sucked not being able to do that. You'd be surprised how many machines that have a 50-50 collection of USB-C and other ports put all the USB-C ports on one side so they're never in the location you need them to be.
Fully aware this isn't going to work for everyone, but people really need to stop pretending like it only has downsides because that absolutely isn't the case.
I think the main point there is the amount of ports, if we had 6 usb-c 's nobody would complain
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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?
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I agree with every point you made except the headphone jack, there are still plenty of wired headphones around, and the cost and size of having one in the laptop is negligible.
plus wired headphones on desktop/ laptop just make more sense because you will probably be using them for longer so battery life would come into play
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The bottom one costs 2x the top one
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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.
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That crumbling column is actually so cool.
"The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire" by Gibbons.
