I'm just really annoyed and feel like complaining 🤣
I have a $3000ish 2018 Macbook Pro from work sitting on my lap right now. It's got everything but the kitchen sink in it, and if I plug in a USB-C cable, it connects to a single monitor and USB devices and everything is nice, except that my 2nd external monitor is a mirror image of the first.
I also have a $600 Surface Go, which is hardly the paragon of high end computing. It also has a USB-C port, and if I plug it into my USB-C monitor, it connects to my monitors and peripherals and everything is perfect. The difference is that it connects to my monitor, and the 2nd monitor that's daisy chained to it. Just. Like. That. My desktop is extended across 2 QHD screens plus the internal screen. My Macbook Pro that costs almost 4x as much can't do that. Apple insists that 2 monitors need some sort of docking station (aka a super-special dongle) or multiple cables.
Imagine my surprise when I plugged my daisy chained monitors into my desktop. It's an old device, with a GPU from the dinosaur age (early 2012!). And the single display port cable carried the signal for both monitors. This is 9 year old technology, and Apple doesn't support it.
Technical aside: Sending multiple video streams through a single USB-C cable relies on a protocol called DisplayPort MST. Apple simply refuses to implement it. If you install Windows on a Macbook via Bootcamp, the hardware supports MST and multiple monitors via a single cable will work.
So here I am, not quite sure what part of my MacBook Pro is really pro level. It's certainly not the butterfly keyboard, nor is it the port selection. It's not the capability of the laptop to drive multiple monitors. It can't max out the CPU without the battery draining multiple percentage points in a minute, and it certainly gets hot and loud when you push it.
Really, it's a mediocre device, and I'm just so sick of compromising to compensate for Apple's inability to make something that's actually functional.
I have a $3000ish 2018 Macbook Pro from work sitting on my lap right now. It's got everything but the kitchen sink in it, and if I plug in a USB-C cable, it connects to a single monitor and USB devices and everything is nice, except that my 2nd external monitor is a mirror image of the first.
I also have a $600 Surface Go, which is hardly the paragon of high end computing. It also has a USB-C port, and if I plug it into my USB-C monitor, it connects to my monitors and peripherals and everything is perfect. The difference is that it connects to my monitor, and the 2nd monitor that's daisy chained to it. Just. Like. That. My desktop is extended across 2 QHD screens plus the internal screen. My Macbook Pro that costs almost 4x as much can't do that. Apple insists that 2 monitors need some sort of docking station (aka a super-special dongle) or multiple cables.
Imagine my surprise when I plugged my daisy chained monitors into my desktop. It's an old device, with a GPU from the dinosaur age (early 2012!). And the single display port cable carried the signal for both monitors. This is 9 year old technology, and Apple doesn't support it.
Technical aside: Sending multiple video streams through a single USB-C cable relies on a protocol called DisplayPort MST. Apple simply refuses to implement it. If you install Windows on a Macbook via Bootcamp, the hardware supports MST and multiple monitors via a single cable will work.
So here I am, not quite sure what part of my MacBook Pro is really pro level. It's certainly not the butterfly keyboard, nor is it the port selection. It's not the capability of the laptop to drive multiple monitors. It can't max out the CPU without the battery draining multiple percentage points in a minute, and it certainly gets hot and loud when you push it.
Really, it's a mediocre device, and I'm just so sick of compromising to compensate for Apple's inability to make something that's actually functional.
