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When Apple first eliminated all but two (or four) USB-C ports, there was a ton of vitriol towards Apple on HN. In the years since Apple’s move, both Dell and IB

by jhatax 6y ago

When Apple first eliminated all but two (or four) USB-C ports, there was a ton of vitriol towards Apple on HN. In the years since Apple’s move, both Dell and IBM have adopted Apple’s playbook and are in the process of eliminating ports, and there are no comments on how everyone will need dongles to connect peripherals or get their work done. - What has changed in our use of laptops over the last 12-months that dongles are no longer a pain point? - Did Apple make the right and, dare I say it, bold call by removing a whole host of ports in lieu of standardizing on USB-C?

likeclockwork 6y ago
They offer machines with more ports, making it the buyer's choice.
Roritharr 6y ago
Dongles are still hell, I regularly still use USB-A and HDMI on my notebook. My Toshiba Portegé X-30-D is coveted in our company as it has: 1x Full-Size USB3 1x Full-Size HDMI 2x Thunderbolt USB-C (Displayport Support on both) Micro-SD Slot Headphone Jack 32GB of Socketed DDR4 Ram 1TB NVMe SSD Matté Full-HD Touchscreen Windows Hello Face&Fingerprint Recognition and weighs only 1,05 kg The only bottleneck is the i7-7500U Dual-Core CPU that I got because I couldn't wait another generation and now I just don't know what to upgrade to. I hope once USB4 becomes available there will be a Ryzen 4800U successor powered notebook available that just MATCHES the rest of the specs of my current one.
RandomBacon 6y ago
It's still a pain-point, it's just that everyone's moved on. It's the new normal.
humanistbot 6y ago
As one of those people who loves all the ports, I'll admit that the adapter situation has gotten a bit better. People/offices have adapted to the situation, where it has become standard to have a set of adapters attached to any display cable. And if not, usually someone has an adapter somewhere. I still find it frustrating that the costs of Apple's decision (followed by others) has effectively been subsidized by everyone else though. Then in the lockdown, it has been months since I've found myself in that frustrating situation where I travel to someone else's office or a conference, they only have an HDMI input, I forgot my adapter, and nobody can seem to find someone who has the right adapter. I'm likely in the market for a laptop over the next 6-12 months, and 6 months ago I would have said for sure that my next laptop would have to have HDMI or bust, but now those pain points are definitely not top of mind.
lovehashbrowns 6y ago
What's nice about the way Lenovo is doing it is that they give a ton of different options for what you want and need. My X1 Extreme, for example, has a ton of different ports, 64GB of RAM, it's bigger, HDMI port, etc. The X1 Nano focuses on being lightweight and portable. If that's what I prefer and I don't mind it only having two USB-C ports, that's what I would go for. And I might! I'd be curious to see how much battery life it actually gets, and it has 5G. What's dumb is that my "Pro" MacBook only has 4 Thunderbolt ports.
chaosharmonic 6y ago
For one thing, USB itself is moving entirely to Type-C as of v4.

by jhatax 6y ago

likeclockwork 6y ago

They offer machines with more ports, making it the buyer's choice.

Roritharr 6y ago

Dongles are still hell, I regularly still use USB-A and HDMI on my notebook. My Toshiba Portegé X-30-D is coveted in our company as it has: 1x Full-Size USB3 1x Full-Size HDMI 2x Thunderbolt USB-C (Displayport Support on both) Micro-SD Slot Headphone Jack 32GB of Socketed DDR4 Ram 1TB NVMe SSD Matté Full-HD Touchscreen Windows Hello Face&Fingerprint Recognition and weighs only 1,05 kg The only bottleneck is the i7-7500U Dual-Core CPU that I got because I couldn't wait another generation and now I just don't know what to upgrade to. I hope once USB4 becomes available there will be a Ryzen 4800U successor powered notebook available that just MATCHES the rest of the specs of my current one.

RandomBacon 6y ago

It's still a pain-point, it's just that everyone's moved on. It's the new normal.

humanistbot 6y ago

As one of those people who loves all the ports, I'll admit that the adapter situation has gotten a bit better. People/offices have adapted to the situation, where it has become standard to have a set of adapters attached to any display cable. And if not, usually someone has an adapter somewhere. I still find it frustrating that the costs of Apple's decision (followed by others) has effectively been subsidized by everyone else though. Then in the lockdown, it has been months since I've found myself in that frustrating situation where I travel to someone else's office or a conference, they only have an HDMI input, I forgot my adapter, and nobody can seem to find someone who has the right adapter. I'm likely in the market for a laptop over the next 6-12 months, and 6 months ago I would have said for sure that my next laptop would have to have HDMI or bust, but now those pain points are definitely not top of mind.

lovehashbrowns 6y ago

What's nice about the way Lenovo is doing it is that they give a ton of different options for what you want and need. My X1 Extreme, for example, has a ton of different ports, 64GB of RAM, it's bigger, HDMI port, etc. The X1 Nano focuses on being lightweight and portable. If that's what I prefer and I don't mind it only having two USB-C ports, that's what I would go for. And I might! I'd be curious to see how much battery life it actually gets, and it has 5G. What's dumb is that my "Pro" MacBook only has 4 Thunderbolt ports.

chaosharmonic 6y ago

For one thing, USB itself is moving entirely to Type-C as of v4.