USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness - Dennis Schubert
overengineer.dev
I was looking for a new USB-c hub and came across this article. It's an interesting write-up of what is on the inside of some popular options
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No thanks, I plug 2 cables into my MBP and get:
Multiple USB-A/USB-C ports
Ethernet
3 monitors
Power
Sound
SD card reader
And a few other things I don’t use
Contrast that with my old MBP that had “all the ports”, I’d have to plug multiple things in, I still had to use hubs, and it struggled to drive 2 monitors. No thanks.
You can use a thunderbolt hub if you want. The point is that with every other brand, you don't have to.
My Latitude has 3 USB-A ports, micro-SD, RJ-45, HDMI, audio jack, Dell power connector, and a full-sized thunderbolt USB-C port that you can also use to charge your laptop while doing all the things that Apple's mandatory USB-C ports do.
So now if I'm at my desk I can plug one cable just like you, in the same hub that you do. And if I'm on the go and need to plug something in... well let's just say it's a pleasure of mine to lord it over the Apple-only guys that I don't need 300€'s worth of cable spaghetti to connect to the beamer in the meeting room.
I will never get how and why Apple shills defend the shit that Apple does. How does proving less functionality benefit ANYONE but Apple? This behavior is so obviously against your own interest! Like, get whatever laptop you want, I don't care and I see that Apple does some things right. This isn't one of them and there is zero objective reason to defend them for removing standard connectivity from their laptops.
Last I checked my work MBP M1 has an hdmi port and 2 ways to charge it. Don't need more than that in a conference room. For home use, a dock is a must, since I'm not unplugging a million connectors every time.
Besides, my Dell XPS laptop doesn't even have that hdmi port. It's not just an Apple problem, everyone did it now.
They want the product because it looks fancy and they don't know any better about the specs to realize it's overpriced. Or they do know and don't care because it's a status symbol. Which is worse, really.
I mean the first iPhone couldn't even use the music on the phone for ringtones. There were like 10 pre-loaded rings and that was it. Meanwhile my Windows smart phone could use any MP3 on the SD card (which could also be used to play music). But people were lining up around the block for the iPhone even though it was objectively worse that the other phones at the time. It was just shiny and didn't require thinking to use, just blind acceptance.