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Comment by slantyyz | Hacker News Reader

The problem has less to do with dongles than having a diverse product line catering to multiple user types.

Apple has basically decided to make all their laptop lines ultrabooks (which is their prerogative). And because a lot Mac users are more loyal to the OS than the hardware itself, they're stuck with what Apple is offering.

As a consultant who goes to different clients, I prefer to have built-in ports as opposed to having dongles I can forget, lose or leave behind. Also, a lot of cables will wear out, and they will stop working when you need them the most (I've ruined quite a few video dongles).

This is why the old unibody MBPs were so great. Yes, they were a little chunkier, but that tradeoff was well worth it for the convenience.

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It's not a consequence of being an ultrabook. Being thin means you can't have VGA or normal ethernet ports. Everything else can fit.

it doesn't even mean that.

I've seen unfolding Ethernet ports that still let the laptop be crazy thin

That's why I said normal, in fact! I'm not entirely sure how durable those weird Ethernet ports are, but they certainly exist.

I have only one laptop that had an "expanding" ethernet port (a Lenovo), and it's not great. It's the first flaky built-in ethernet port I've ever had in a laptop.

> Also, a lot of cables will wear out, and they will stop working when you need them the most (I've ruined quite a few video dongles)

Okay, but if a dongle breaks, you just buy another dongle. If a video port breaks, that's a much more expensive replacement - though I suppose you can get a USB video dongle these days.

On a side note, I wish that wireless video was more of a thing, given the security issues with physical connectors.

>> Okay, but if a dongle breaks, you just buy another dongle.

Sure. But what if you're onsite somewhere and can't get one nearby? This is a huge problem if you're somewhere where you are required to use a wire for networking (these places do exist).

Buy a spare.

> What if the spare breaks as well?

The universe hates you, you're doomed.

So the solution is to have a briefcase full of dongles?

That's why I no longer have a Mac and have a Windows laptop instead.

That’s a bullshit argument. My SO‘s Lenovo Laptops USB A ports broke. My USB-C Ports seem significantly more robust, not by implementation but by design. I don’t care about some five dollar China dongle- I care about the connectors of my computer and in this regard there is not a single connector that can compete with USB-C.

>> That’s a bullshit argument.

I said "That's why I no longer have a Mac and have a Windows laptop instead." It's not an argument. It's simply a statement of fact that explains a choice I've made for myself.

I literally switched from a user serviceable Mac laptop with plenty of ports (15" 2011 MBP) to user serviceable PC laptops with plenty of ports, with one of the primary reasons being that the newer Macbook models didn't satisfy my desire to have a full suite of ports that includes ethernet.

As for broken ports/connectors, I've had zero port failures in almost 3 decades of laptop ownership, and I don't consider myself to be very gentle plugging/unplugging my peripherals.

At the moment, I have 2 laptops with USB-C and 3 without. I personally don't see a huge difference in robustness between the USB-C and USB-A ports. Even when I buy a USB-C laptop, I still make sure that it still has at least one USB-A port so I can have dongle-free interoperability with my peripherals.

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