Comment by jsight
The port count is a real problem on modern laptops. I like USB-C, but why are there so few of them? Having to have a hub for basic things is really annoying.
The port count is a real problem on modern laptops. I like USB-C, but why are there so few of them? Having to have a hub for basic things is really annoying.
> Imagine having 4 USB-C ports, but 2 of them are USB 2.0 only
To be fair, that's already how PC laptops are - they have USB-A ports with random colors and symbols on them that you need to figure out which is the good one, so I don't see why they aren't doing the same with USB-C.
I don't think it's the same because the only USB-A difference was speed. Maybe yellow charging port. And USB 2.0 is still 'working'
That's not the case with the other features I've mentioned.
I have a macbook pro. It has 3x USB-C, HDMI, a magsafe charger port, SD slot and audio jack.
I love having a dock, it means I get to hide all the wires behind the desk, and plug the laptop into power, two screens and all the other peripherals with a single cable.
USB-C ports have so many features that require extra connections, which makes them costly. And then adding extra ports without those features gets confusing to the end user if it can't properly communicated.
Imagine having 4 USB-C ports, but 2 of them are USB 2.0 only. Like that but more complicated because it's a feature on a separate controller. Video out, which requires additional connections to the GPU. Power input, done through a USB-PD controller. PCI-E tunneling, taking up PCI-E lanes from the CPU.
Even looking at the Framework Laptop: https://frame.work/laptop16?tab=specs , only the Nvidia GPU USB-C port supports charging while the AMD one doesn't. Look at the section on the "6x user-selectable Expansion Cards" where they list the capabilities of the individual ports. I think different specs for those USB-C ports are less egregious because the idea is to install an expansion card, but giving 6 different USB-C ports like that to a regular user sounds like a bad idea.