I don't see how that DOESN'T get broken on the second use, honestly.

Because it's meant for ultra-slim devices that will be docked on Thunderbolt 99% of the time and that foldable RJ-45 jack is for the "in case of emergency break glass" scenarios, that 1% of the time when you need to patch into a server physically without wasting time looking for a dongle, not for you to constantly plug/unplug ethernet cables in your laptop.

If your uses case requires you to constantly plug/unplug ethernet cables in your laptop then you need a workstation class laptop with a full sized RJ-45 jack, not a sleek thin and light.

That one yes. But Lenovo has great collabsible Ethernet ports that are very durable and this laptop is more than thick enough to house one.

One careless snag of the cable would have to rip the aluminum apart I would think

The connector's on the top, the bottom is simply a retention clip. If it breaks, you can replace it with tape, or simply resting the laptop on a surface while the cable is plugged in.

laptops without an rj-45 ethernet connector are just dumb.

it's perfectly feasible to integrate one.

just look a the dell latitude 7390. really, look at it:

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/eB6gGRDZWSYT4XW6SeSMtf-120...

That's just a place to gather junk. People rarely use rj-45 these days, that's why it's not present on most laptops.

If by people you mean consumers, then yes, if you mean corporate/tech workers, then no.

I mean all people. When you work on the laptop you probably connect more things than a network => you have a dock => you don't need the rj45. So there might be negligible amount of corporate workers that need it, and some portion of tech workers, maybe. But overall, out of all customers, it's not enough for the hassle. Especially since it has drawbacks for the rest of the customers.

I don't think we even have a cable with RJ45 in the office I work in. Everyone's on Wi-Fi. All developers. Just saying.

In our case it's the opposite. Whole company is wired. No WiFi.

In our case it's the opposite. Whole company is WiFi. No wired.

we have it mixed: both wifi and wired are there. pick what's best for you.

I've seen them on some ASUS laptops as well.