You do not need to buy a dozen Apple dongles, just one USB-C dock/hub/whatever, with the ports that you regularly use. Have one on your desk with monitor, drives, keyboard, mouse, network all connected so you only plug in one cable.
When you go on the road you might want a dock with HDMI so you can plug in to various displays. But you won't need a dozen dongles. Just a hub.
It is just a slightly different way of working rather than plugging all the cables into the laptop and having a huge clumsy mess.
Then Apple is not the company for you. They have always been first to obsolete things. Remember the hoopla when they canned the DVD drive? Firewire? Literally every other port that isnt USBC
The author's definition of Pro also includes 16GB RAM, but most posts I've seen complain about not being able to order 32GB RAM. It seems that Apple can't win no matter what they do.
(tbh, avoiding sd and hdmi doesn't make sense to me. What do you have to lose?)
USB-C works with all the monitor you have and also with all the monitors you'll have.
You can use any port on the laptop and crucially charge the laptop and connect to a display with the same cable, and can be even used to connect to other peripherals using the same cable.
Your argument is that you don't want to spend $10 in adapters, you'll end up spending more in the future and be limited in terms of compatibility with newer hardware.
"Stick every Port in it" is ridiculous also.
What laptop does have Ethernet, infiniband, USB-A/B/C, thunderbolt 2.0, miniDisplayPort, MiniUSB, MicroUSB, RS232, Centronics, PS/2, VGA, EGA, PCMCIA, SCSI, eSATA, S-video, etc?
Yes, "every" port is ridiculous. In particular, I think most people would happily do away with anything that hasn't been in wide use in new hardware over the last decade.
I like machines with a port for wired network, a port or two for wired video, an SD slot, and 3-4 USB ports in a mix of USB-A and USB-C. For a Mac, I'd argue that some Thunderbolt ports would make good sense, too. I'd rather have my laptop be a self-contained system than have my bag filled with the half-dozen converter dongles that I'd need to provide the connectivity that I use with my current machine.
There are reasons for this no happening. TB3 is compatible with USB Type-C port format, it has a very high bandwidth and it's supported by Intel.
One of the things I actually dislike about it: a port can be USB-C without being TB3. That's going to be fun with the plain USB-C port in my laptop.
> a port can be USB-C without being TB3
It is dominant in the market where USB falls short, that's what matters.
> It is dominant in the market where USB falls short, that's what matters.
It isn't dominant in the market yet, and that's my entire point. When it is: cool. I don't have much argument against it (aside from the dongle-hell I'll be living in). But right now, I don't own a device with any version of Thunderbolt, even with several new laptops around.
I hate on board ethernet, it's stupid, almost all of them have only one NIC and only 1Gbps, which is laughable in this day, much more in the 4 or 5 years a laptop usually lasts.
So... welcome TB 3.0 (which can be used for 40Gbps daisy chain networking), and 10GbE adapters someday or another.
Why would you need more than one NIC on a laptop?
Ethernet is ubiquitous in corporate. I'm yet to see an office with Thunderbird ports.
My point was that adapters are something that I have to think about, carry separately, and sometimes forget or lose.
I don't know why people keep repeating "USB-C works with X" (replace X with whatever). It might work if I get all the dongles. For the moment, as I said, out of ~40 devices around me there are exactly ZERO that I can plug into the new machine.
Also, let's not get into extremes here: I would not complain if they at least kept at least one or two USB 3 ports.
This is Apple we're talking about. The only thing they've ever sold at a $10 price point is the MagSafe 1 to MagSafe 2 adapter. And, frankly, even that was overpriced.
Meanwhile, all those craptastic laptops that are "better than the MacBook Pro", you'll have to buy a specific adapter from the OEM.
Right now I use a MacBook Pro to do my work ("pro", remember?). I need a faster machine, so I will have to upgrade. And I will have to deal with all the dongles, carrying them, remembering about them, losing them, etc. I expect I will eventually make an idiot of myself in front of a client, once they hand me a flash drive with their data and I'll have to admit red-faced that I forgot the dongle thingy.
MacBook Pro used to have the "pro" philosophy: stick every port in there, so that the only thing you have to carry is your macbook and you're ready for everything. Then it started: ethernet disappeared, DVI went away, and successively all ports went away until now we are stuck with 4 ports of the same kind, that are useless (but hey, they show great promise!).
I don't want a thinner machine. I don't need a lighter machine. I need a machine so that I can do my work. Pro, remember?
Price is largely not an issue if you actually use it for work, so I have no complaints there.