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 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.
That is fair. I guess my statement was ambiguous but of all the things I’m least bothered by its inclusion. At this point in my life I’m not actually sure I still own anything that could plug into a 3.5mm jack though.
Also to keep the computer symmetrical you actually need a third hole to match the location of the Kensington lock slot on the other side :D
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
If we had 6 USB-Cs probably not all of them would carry power and/or video so some people would still complain.
I have an example of this, my work mac mini m3 has two ports with power and three without, it’s almost enough!
Also to have them on both sides for accessibility and limited space.
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.
That is fair. I guess my statement was ambiguous but of all the things I’m least bothered by its inclusion. At this point in my life I’m not actually sure I still own anything that could plug into a 3.5mm jack though.
Also to keep the computer symmetrical you actually need a third hole to match the location of the Kensington lock slot on the other side :D
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