I agree with everything else you said and I think overall these machines will be awesome.
I would disagree with you on the ports though, I think this is kind of a miss for Apple. They caved into some of the loudest complaints from several years ago which were already coming from a loud minority and that minority is now smaller than ever.
And if they were set on changing the ports these certainly aren't all that you could ever want. A few USB-A ports as well as keeping at least the 4 USB-C ports from last year (instead of reducing to 3) would have been more useful for more people than the HDMI and especially the SD ports are.
(HDMI used to be useful for plugging into a projector for presentations, that use-case is now nearly non-existent now that all meetings tend to happen over zoom, webex, teams, hangouts, etc. even when in-person. HDMI used to be useful for monitors but increasingly displayport over usb-c is supported by everything except the lowest end monitors. SD used to be important for stills and video footage, but increasingly cameras use CFExpress, CFast, output over hdmi to an atmos-style recorder, or even micro-SD for small GoPro style cameras, all of which will still need dongles. Devices like Raspberry Pis require micro SD not standard SD).
They also could have added the nifty ethernet-over-magsafe via the powerbrick that the iMac has and they didn't do that.
Edit: One additional thought - I'm seeing from the comments some reasonable situations where HDMI still comes in handy - cheap monitors, plugging into a tv to watch something, and I guess there are still lots of people physically plugging in at work for presentations. Fair enough, but in that case it's weird that this is a "Pro" feature. These are all very non-pro usecases and you'll still need dongles around for anybody with a non-pro machine (like a macbook air).
> HDMI used to be useful for plugging into a projector for presentations, that use-case is now nearly non-existent now that all meetings tend to happen over zoom, webex, teams, hangouts, etc. even when in-person.
I'm not sure you have the information to make the claim that the use case for HDMI is nearly non-existent. We use HDMI all the time. Availability bias is a thing. I find that people drastically underestimate how much they don't know about a subject or use-case of a product.
> Why have static ports when you can have dynamic ports?
Because dynamic ports (basically internal dongles) reduces the amount of internal volume they have to work with. This would cause compromises in other areas like a thicker laptop, less battery life, noisier fan, etc.
> Why have static ports when you can have dynamic ports?
The numerous USB-C dongles are basically dynamic ports..albeit with a lot more inconvenience. But internal swappable ports removes a lot of internal space.
Yep, I'm in Australia in a state that has been largely in office for most of the year and I used the HDMI port on my Dell XPS. Although because of the macbook users, every HDMI cable in the office has a usb-c dongle stuck on it so I wouldn't be too inconvenienced by the lack of the port either.
I strongly disagree. They didn't cave in to a minority, they gave Ive the boot and are finally putting back so many ports they know they should never have removed.
Why they shouldn't have been removed?
Because USB-C is awesome and _almost_ everywhere, but you need ONE important occasion where you need to connect a screen, plug in an SD card or even an external (pen|hard) drive, maybe in front of customers, and you get really infuriatingly frustrated, and regret buying this stupid trap which has half the ports of the one from 10 years ago, but costs 3x as much and just lost you a customer.
The old one would have worked. Who's the idiot which came up with this contraption?
Dongles are NOT the solution. They get lost or forgotten, they're messy.
Reducing to 3 USB-C ports is perfectly fine as we regain the dedicated magsafe.
> which has half the ports of the one from 10 years ago, but costs 3x as much
I'm with you right up 'til that '3X as much' part - MacBook Pros have remained static or gone down in real prices over the last decade - not 3x higher.
For all the times Apple seems to be willing to "stick to its guns" and ignore consumer complaining, this seems like a weird time to give in.
They basically made a line-in-the-sand on USB-C adoption, and it pretty much worked. I'd argue that an HDMI and SD card readers are less useful, and certainly far less versatile than additional USB-C ports.
For all the dongle jokes of a few years ago, I don't really see a reason to go back to less versatile ports in laptops.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 was also hoping that they would somehow be able to shoehorn an ethernet port inside of the power adapter, like on the M1 iMac
on my M1 MacBook Pro (which, throughout the pandemic, has rested on my desk in clamshell mode all day, like a desktop), I use a
ethernet <=> ethernet to thunderbolt 2 <=> thunderbolt 2 to thunderbolt 3/usb-c
adapter chain, which takes up an entire usb-c port since it doesn't work at all when I plug it into the usb-c pass-through on my other usb-c hub
unfortunately, there seems to be some kind of hardware bug in the thunderbolt 2 ethernet adapter, so even when the machine is asleep or off, it runs hot
it also seems weird that Apple doesn't manufacture a first party ethernet <=> usb-c adapter — if i'm not mistaken, the only one on their website is made by Belkin and costs $30; moreover, I don't think anyone even manufactures a 10gbps ethernet adapter for the M1
There are Thunderbolt 3 10gbit adapters that work on M1. I use a QNAP QNA-T310G1S on an M1 Mini with no issues. It's SFP+, which I prefer--both due to existing hardware I already have, and for lighter power consumption compared to 10gbit over RJ45.
QNA-T310G1T is the RJ45 model, but there are other makes available too.
(I bought the Mini at launch, and they've since released a SKU with built-in 10gbit Ethernet)
> (HDMI used to be useful for plugging into a projector for presentations, that use-case is now nearly non-existent now that all meetings tend to happen over zoom, webex, teams, hangouts, etc. even when in-person. HDMI used to be useful for monitors but increasingly displayport over usb-c is supported by everything except the lowest end monitors.
If the HDMI port supports 100% of whatever resolution/framerate possible for modern top end monitors then I'd be happy to see the end of fighting with DisplayPort. Getting Macbook Pro to work with modern monitors is a buggy mess, loads of hassles []
I'd be happy to know that they made this choice deliberately to fix whatever issues where I guess plaguing the USB-C display connections.
I agree with everything else you said and I think overall these machines will be awesome.
I would disagree with you on the ports though, I think this is kind of a miss for Apple. They caved into some of the loudest complaints from several years ago which were already coming from a loud minority and that minority is now smaller than ever.
And if they were set on changing the ports these certainly aren't all that you could ever want. A few USB-A ports as well as keeping at least the 4 USB-C ports from last year (instead of reducing to 3) would have been more useful for more people than the HDMI and especially the SD ports are.
(HDMI used to be useful for plugging into a projector for presentations, that use-case is now nearly non-existent now that all meetings tend to happen over zoom, webex, teams, hangouts, etc. even when in-person. HDMI used to be useful for monitors but increasingly displayport over usb-c is supported by everything except the lowest end monitors. SD used to be important for stills and video footage, but increasingly cameras use CFExpress, CFast, output over hdmi to an atmos-style recorder, or even micro-SD for small GoPro style cameras, all of which will still need dongles. Devices like Raspberry Pis require micro SD not standard SD).
They also could have added the nifty ethernet-over-magsafe via the powerbrick that the iMac has and they didn't do that.
Edit: One additional thought - I'm seeing from the comments some reasonable situations where HDMI still comes in handy - cheap monitors, plugging into a tv to watch something, and I guess there are still lots of people physically plugging in at work for presentations. Fair enough, but in that case it's weird that this is a "Pro" feature. These are all very non-pro usecases and you'll still need dongles around for anybody with a non-pro machine (like a macbook air).