Every monitor and TV manufactured within the last decade without exception has an HDMI input and monitors that support thunderbolt are nearly double the cost. Even if money is no object that HDMI port will prove to be useful.

It's weird to sell the machine with a super high resolution 120hz mini LED screen though and then optimize the ports for the cheap $400 monitor market.

You're right though the HDMI port might come in handy in random situations, better to include it than not. The SD port is the one I really don't get. And I still maintain that the continued lack of USB-A ports is a much bigger dongle problem than the lack of HDMI port was.

They didn't optimize the ports for the cheap monitor market, at all. These machines support Apple's extremely expensive display and all the various 4K and 5K displays out there, admirably.

And they ALSO have the single most needed and bitched about port if it's absent, by far, for nearly all business users, which is HDMI. Far and away the best thing they could have added.

I personally will not use it often, but when I do, it will be invaluable, and for the users I support, it will be a tremendous increase in convenience and ease-of-use.

If you need a lot of USB-A ports, get a CalDigit dock and be done with it. If you need just 1, there are extraordinarily tiny adapters.

It's time to get over USB-A.

Which reminds me: I want more USB-C ports; Caldigits latest Thunderbolt 4 dock finally added the ability (as I believe the chipsets available maxed out at 2 ports previously). One of those, plus a 14" MacBook Pro with the M1X Max and I think I'll be set for computers + connectivity for a very long while.

If I had one of these machines, I would not be using that port at my desk.

However, I would be using it in every conference room I use, multiple times daily. It’s the difference between plugging in the cable vs. finding the right dongle that’s security-cabled to the presenter cable, and connecting it in the middle.

SD is absolutely massive in Asia, on a level that I think cannot be gauged properly from the West. I reckon these ports have been added with an eye to the Asian market rather than California.

That's interesting. Are you talking about microSD in smartphones, or standard SD?

MicroSD support would have actually made more sense to me than standard SD. But from what it looks like micro cards will still require a dongle of sorts.

SD and microSD nominally inhabit the same space, but microSD is effectively limited to storage whereas SD can be used for other things; it's just more flexible to provide an SD slot, if you can spare the lateral space. Among other things, microSDs are so tiny that it is often more practical to put them in an SD adapter whenever you need to handle them. That's why SD adapters are so widespread, and you'll likely find one in the package whenever you buy a consumer microSD.

Yeah, that's a bit weird actually. I looked at my country's most popular comparison site, and listed the top-10 best viewed memory cards. Of those 10: 9 microSD, 1 standard SD.

https://tweakers.net/geheugenkaarten/vergelijken/#filter:q1Y...

You can get an SD case for a micro SD card for less than 5 bucks. Can't adapt the other way inside a slot.

It's actually coming free with most off-the-shelf microSDs. And exactly that - SD as a physical format is more flexible, nowadays it can be used even for non-storage cards.

> SD is absolutely massive in Asia

Why is that?

Cheap android phones with decent cameras and expandable storage (microSD).

Edit: I'm obviously oversimplifying, but most of the world doesn't have always-on data connections (e.g. rural areas) and manufacturers outside of silicon valley do optimise for people that may want to download media so the can view/listen when they're not connected. Nothing beats a cheap phone replaceable battery and storage.

I assume it took off instead of USB storage for reasons lost to time.

It's not some great mystery, micro SD cards are tiny, USB storage isn't.

Because the cheap HDMI monitors might be the only ones available to you as your company calls people into the office but now with the added beauty of hoteling.

/snark

SD cards are essential for anyone who does video or photography seriously - and that’s a big part of the market this laptop sells to. I’m glad it’s back

Nope. I do them seriously. My Mavic 2 Pro has a microSD slot, my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV has a CF slot (it also does have a SD slot too, which is slower and I've never used it).

SD card reader is a nice addition for a handful of pros, sure, but definitely not essential for everyone who does photo/video seriously.

yeah and my blackmagic cameras have SD/CF/SSD - but SD is super common, most cameras have it. New UHS-II SD cards are pretty fast - https://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/sd-memory-card-faq/fastest...

MicroSD->SD is easy with a dummy adapter

My company had to dongle up EVERY meeting room once developers switched to MacBook pros with USB-C. But we still have non Mac users who use HDMI. To this day, every meeting has the potential to be sixty seconds late while we navigate through dongle hell…

The HDMI is for plugging into displays that are available to you when you are out of your office. Since they all have HDMI inputs this is a very sensible port.

Depending on HDMI spec supported, an HDMI port can power pretty high specced display. I am not sure where this cheap monitor thing is coming from.

USB-a dongle's make money and I'm sure the removal of magsafe cost them on applecare

Anecdote, but... I rarely, but sometimes, need to read SD cards, for e.g. embedded systems, RPi, Nintendo Switch, etc. Not enough to go out and buy a brand new USB-C dongle which I would then lose somewhere in my house, but enough that it's annoying to not be able to use my primary laptop with it.

Don't get me wrong, I would still buy a MacBook with no SD card slot, but I would occasionally run into cases where I wish I had that dongle that I lost somewhere.

Well these are all microSD cards, so you would still need an adapter :)

The SD card slot is a weird duck.

There's a single use case for which can't easily be replaced by a USB-C dongle: using it as makeshift additional "internal" storage.

SD cards work pretty well for that, for most read-heavy use cases. On older Macbooks, with undersized internal storage, I'd keep an SD card in the slot. I'd keep downloaded media there, installers, even infrequently used applications. Assuming one's using a high quality SD card, performance was "plenty good enough."

I wouldn't keep anything crucial on an SD card, but everything on my local storage is backed up to the cloud anyway, so not really an issue.

Take one of the "pro" markets—photographers. They sure have to deal with SD cards, and they often shoot tethered, which almost always means HDMI connection.

Tethering isn't done over HDMI. Invariably it's propietary, Micro USB-B or Micro-USB 3.1 to the camera and a plain old USB-A to the machine. Wireless tether is a thing to.

I imagine the air and base model pro will still retain USB-C only.

I really hope they bring MagSafe at least back to the air in next years rumored redesign and refreshed chip.