Agreed. It’s crazy that people on HN (you, me, and other commenters) are considering an Air just to get away from the TB. Airs only have one free port (one has to be used for charging).

It really says something that HNers are willing to give up ports and speed (and possibly SD, if rumors are true) just to get away from the TB.

One can be used for display _and_ charging, right?

Perhaps if you have a certain kind of monitor, presumably an expensive one? I have a no-TB 2017 MBP that has two ports, and I use one to charge and the other to connect a monitor over HDMI. That means I have zero free ports.

And since I run in clamshell mode, I can't even unplug the power cord temporarily, as the computer will only run in clamshell mode if it is plugged into power.

I do have an Anker mini-dock dongle, but it gets very hot when I use it, so I only use it when necessary. Also, it annoyingly cannot be used to charge any devices, so I can't even plug my iPhone into it to charge. I'm sure there are some other docks out there that are better, but when I was looking in 2017 it wasn't clear which ones those were (aside from the $200+ ones, which I wasn't about to purchase).

This is the one I am waiting for: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-dock but ya, not cheap...

This one a bit cheaper: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-hub

Yes I do that

What type of monitor do you use? I just did some quick googling, and it looks like they're 2x as expensive as monitors that just have HDMI. It's possible that they're higher-end in other ways (resolution, brightness), but I paid about $120 for a 24" Samsung a couple years ago, and it looks like the cheapest Thunderbolt/USB-C monitor I can get is $190. But that's only 21", which is pretty small.