Not that it is better period. It is better for some, me included. I've already stated above why is that so.
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I'd like to praise Apple for switching to all USB-C
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Not that it is better period. It is better for some, me included. I've already stated above why is that so.
I may be wrong about this, but I always assumed the legacy ports (usb-a, HDMI) were too tall for the new 2016+ MBP... ? I've never actually measured them so maybe not. Some laptops dropped Ethernet because of this.
Maybe this all comes back to the thinness issue again?
Wrong for you, maybe.
Great. If you happen to have SD cards, a HDMI display, and.. I dunno, SATA-based SSD drives I guess?
Can't use your thumb drive.
My thumb drive has both type-A and type-C ports on it, and cost me the princely sum of $10 for 32GB.
USB-C magnetic-disconnect cables/adapters literally are a thing that exists and you can buy.
So you're suggesting Apple design and ship a laptop that is so power hungry it literally cannot be run from battery, OR that it must have a battery so large it is no longer allowed on planes? Sounds like a great idea.
I'm glad you've done the market research of all possible uses of the MacBook Pro, and deemed the maximum requirement for versatile ports to be "3". I'd love to have seen your spit-take when the Mac Pro was announced with up to 12 TB3 ports.
I, and many others, have no use for HDMI or SD card slots, and they can do literally nothing else. How is that more "reasonable", than giving you four ports that can do practically anything any existing port can do, and in the case of "common" ports, very cheaply.
Right, because we all remember the glory days of running dual 4K displays off the HDMI port and SD-card slot, so you have the TB port free for high speed I/O... Oh wait, no we don't.
Every thread about this topic is filled with people telling you their case. If you choose to ignore those comments, that's on you.
Nobody has said, "there is no compelling case to use HDMI or SD cards or USB-A ports". No one. NOT A SINGLE PERSON has said there's no use for those ports by anyone. What people have said, is that TB3 has the capability to provide the "missing" ports from a 2015 or 2012 or 2011 or whatever year MBP, generally at minimal cost, for those who need it. But it also has the capability to do things those specific ports cannot do: drive multiple 4K displays from a single port. Connect to 10Gbit ethernet. Connect to fibre channel. Connect to an eGPU. Connect to an old FW800 drive. And it can do those things while providing power to the laptop. Or providing power from the laptop to the device.
But here we have people suggesting that including their own personally preferred single-use port, at the expense of TB3 ports, is "a reasonable compromise". Sure, it's reasonable to you, because you get what you want. How is it reasonable to the person who has no use for that port, and loses a port that could do practically anything.
Every single argument about this boils down to: "I want a <insert single use port>". "Well, I don't use that, at all. A more flexible port works for me, even if it means I need an adapter for it". "DONGLES DONGLES DONGLES GIVE ME BACK MY HDMI".
Let me reiterate this again, because apparently some people don't seem to understand this point of view:
Any port that any Mac laptop has had this century, can be made available on a TB3 port.
HDMI and SD card ports, have literally one use. USB type-A is a little more flexible, but is both speed limited from the start, and then has further overheads. For example if you just want Gig ethernet it's probably fine. If you want 10Gbit, forget it. And forget about anything that needs to work directly over PCIe lanes.
Please tell me what other versatile port they omitted. Also, please double check the definition of "versatile" because I don't think it means what you think it means.
It's wonderful for people with legacy devices. For all the talk people make about Apple designing "planned obsolescence", and now we're told that including ridiculous fast, flexible ports that can be used to do practically anything is bad, but including legacy ports which have a single use, that the owner may or may not be able to use, is good.. My mind is ****ing blown by the contradiction here.
And how much would you piss and moan if they made it USB2.0 and on the same bus as the ****ing touch pad or whatever else is on that bus, so that it doesn't hobble TB3 ports?
There is a finite amount of physical space inside a computer - forget the port size and thinness, the port has **** behind it, which takes up space. Every additional port also requires PCI lanes to function. Take a few for some USB3 ports, an SD card port, and suddenly you don't have enough lanes to run as many TB3 ports, or you end up with the "full speed" vs "reduced speed" TB3 ports like on the early 13" TB3 MBPs.
A TB3 port can provide you your precious USB type-A port. Heck, it can provide FOUR 10Gbpos USB 3.1Gen2 ports from a single TB3 port. Or some USB and HDMI. Or USB and Ethernet. Or USB and HDMI and Ethernet. Or USB and Firewire. Or Dual DisplayPort. Or Dual HDMI. Or 10Gbit ethernet. Or practically anything else you can imagine.
How much of that can a USB port provide? Hint: not a lot.
Assuming you mean a MacBook Air, you should be more in favour of TB3. One $20 adapter can give you more 'legacy' ports than the 2015 15" MBP had. Good ones will provide power pass through too, so you still have your second port free for a display, or a fast SSD, or whatever you want to use.
I have an older 2011 MBP which is almost virtually useless because of the older ports now. FW800, USB2, Thunderbolt 1, express card slot and so forth. The problem with those ports is they eventually become outdated making it very difficult to support newer connection technologies. I so wish Apple adopted USB-c back then to make this system more usable today. The MBP is a 4 core and still a pretty decent laptop but it really is limited today by those horrible ports and the crappy GPU which does not support Metal and can no longer update the OS. TB3 on this 2011 MBP would have allowed a fast "supported" eGPU and expansion to USB3 or USB3.1 easily and extended its life for a few more years.
We really are lucky that we no longer live in an age with potentially outdated connectivity to our expensive computers. Even something as simple as HDMI is not all that simple. There are different levels of HDMI based on broadcast specs and once a port supports a particular level of HDMI it can never be updated. For example HDMI only capable of HD will never support 4k resolution. TB3 is a much better option because if you have a 4k HDMI adapter now you are much more likely to support 8k HDMI in the future with a simple adapter change. Because HDMI is tied to broadcast standards like 1920 and 3840 it will never support resolutions like 5k or 6k or refresh rates like 200hz. It really is a rather limited port. A port that can easily be adapted to if one needs to support HDMI devices like projectors and so forth. If we had a built in HDMI port it would have limited use and could never do anything more than it does today.
So while I understand it can be annoying to have adapters I think annoying is much better than hobbling a system in the future.
I use $9.00 USB3 adapters the size of my pinky fingernail so really its not a big deal to just keep a couple in a bag if you need them for USB3 devices. They can likely even stay plugged into the MBP and still fit inside the laptop bag.
We really are lucky that we no longer live in an age with potentially outdated connectivity to our expensive computers. Even something as simple as HDMI is not all that simple. There are different levels of HDMI based on broadcast specs and once a port supports a particular level of HDMI it can never be updated. For example HDMI only capable of HD will never support 4k resolution. TB3 is a much better option because if you have a 4k HDMI adapter now you are much more likely to support 8k HDMI in the future with a simple adapter change. Because HDMI is tied to broadcast standards like 1920 and 3840 it will never support resolutions like 5k or 6k or refresh rates like 200hz. It really is a rather limited port. A port that can easily be adapted to if one needs to support HDMI devices like projectors and so forth. If we had a built in HDMI port it would have limited use and could never do anything more than it does today.
So while I understand it can be annoying to have adapters I think annoying is much better than hobbling a system in the future.
I use $9.00 USB3 adapters the size of my pinky fingernail so really its not a big deal to just keep a couple in a bag if you need them for USB3 devices. They can likely even stay plugged into the MBP and still fit inside the laptop bag.
FYI a TB1 or 2 “dock” (eg https://www.akitio.com/adapters/thunder-dock) will give you USB3 (and eSATA but that’s not really a commonly used port). I have one on a 2011 MBP17. It’s partly why I’m so pro-TB3: the only saving grace on that old MBP 8 years later is the single TB port. Now we have four TB ports with oodles more bandwidth, and oodles of oodles more supporting products.
...and they do not work...read the reviews on Amazon or on this very forum, there is a thread about Magsafe alternatives, good luck...
So you're suggesting Apple design and ship a laptop that is so power hungry it literally cannot be run from battery, OR that it must have a battery so large it is no longer allowed on planes? Sounds like a great idea.
You do not know what you are talking about.
Every other OEMs in their professional / high-end / gaming laptops (i.e. the ones with decent GPUs) use 150W - 250W power supply via a proprietary conector...ask yourself why...
Show me a Laptop with a decent GPU (and the rMBP is not one of them) that use USB-C for power delivery.....
I, and many others, do..so?
The first two that showed up on amazon have 4/5 star ratings/reviews. Not sure that really confirms your point?
Well, the MBP15 has a 83.6Wh battery, and the FAA only allows up to 100Wh laptop batteries.
Apple also supply an 87W USB-C charger.
So, in what scenario can you make use of a 200W charger that the battery would not then be woefully underpowered for?
I don’t know why they do it, you’re the one who seems to know all about them, maybe you can explain it?
No MacBook Pro has ever had a 100W+ charger. Even the 17” monsters had an 87 (85?) Watt charger.
This whole “100w isn’t enough” argument ignores reality that apple didn’t use more power when they had their own proprietary charging connector anyway.
So you can get hdmi or a card reader or both, out of a TB3 port for about $20, but you can’t get Ethernet or multiple displays or fast SSDs out of HDMI or an SD slot, no matter how hard you jam the cables in or how much money you offer to the gods of legacy ports.
I can explain, it is really simple. If you want to have 200W charger you need to use 5016Wmin battery. 5016>200. Just don't even let me start about all those desktops having 1000+W PSUs, imagine how big those batteries in them are.
LOL, I'm struggling to find that 230W battery in the notebook myself
Reason people need these ports is practicality including USB C, but to strip them all out is a PIA for those that use them. The adoption of USB C in industry is slow at best, dongles a mixed bag and more to manage on the road.
Q-6
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I used to have a nice TB1 dock I paid $250 for. It broke after a few years and never bothered to invest in another $250 dock for such an old machine. Plus it was really hard daisy chaining TB devices with that single port since so many devices only had one port. I had a TB desktop drive that had two ports and then the dock and both devices eventually died on me. TB1 was never the worlds most stable port for me. I much prefer the usbc based TB3 and having four of them.
I don't see Apple including a massive power brick with their laptops. I expect they will continue to do what they do now where if you need to burst draw a load that exceeds the power adapter they'll dip into the battery to get the excess.
Looking at other OEMs they make machines that fill every niche in computing from ultra light laptops to desktop replacements that weight 10+lbs without power bricks included (including ones that have 2 massive power bricks because for some even 1 230W brick isn't enough). If you need that kind of performance baked into a laptop Apple is unlikely to ever be the OEM that will satisfy your needs. They have never been in that zone and the PC market is too mature for me to see them making a leap like that.
But all of that said... That's kind of the point here. TB3 freed up the Mac professionals to not be restricted to Apple's compromises in very profound ways. If you need workstation class GPUs then throw it into an eGPU and you now have it. If you don't need that then you skip it and you aren't forced to use a wheel barrel to move your laptop around for the 2 users in the lineup who do.
There are still compromises you will have to accept out of Apple (currently soldered RAM, Storage, and chassis compromises), but the flexibility TB3 affords you is game changing...
Honestly, now that TB3 is becoming USB4 you're going to see laptops in general start to consolidate into more MB style designs and a move toward "dock" setups where you're plugging in 1 or 2 cables and you're truly getting desktop class performance that is as nimble as your workflow needs it to be. I wouldn't be surprised if this spreads to desktops too where you may be able to easily connect your desktop to your laptop and share resources.
The best part about this trend... Our devices will last us even longer and be more economical as a result.
usb c is the gift that keeps on giving.
i recently upgraded to 2019 mbp 13 from 2011 Macbook and so glad that Thunderbolt existed back then. I have been able to not only run two external monitors thanks to the Caldigit thunderbolt station but also got usb 3, ethernet etc. that old thunderbolt was able to provide. This was huge upgrade from FW800 and slow usb on that machine.
i just got the anker usb c to lightning charge cable and can now speed charge my iphone x to 50% in 30 min.
You can charge the batteries on the Sony a7iii series cameras with usb c and the ISDT NP2 sony battery charger allows usb c charging instead of puny usb micro .5 amp charging.
just ordered 1tb nvme samsung 970 evo+ and tb 3 enclosure for 2-2.5gb/s transfers.
i recently upgraded to 2019 mbp 13 from 2011 Macbook and so glad that Thunderbolt existed back then. I have been able to not only run two external monitors thanks to the Caldigit thunderbolt station but also got usb 3, ethernet etc. that old thunderbolt was able to provide. This was huge upgrade from FW800 and slow usb on that machine.
i just got the anker usb c to lightning charge cable and can now speed charge my iphone x to 50% in 30 min.
You can charge the batteries on the Sony a7iii series cameras with usb c and the ISDT NP2 sony battery charger allows usb c charging instead of puny usb micro .5 amp charging.
just ordered 1tb nvme samsung 970 evo+ and tb 3 enclosure for 2-2.5gb/s transfers.
Just chiming in with my opinion
1...... Just 1! USB A port wouldn’t have killed anything. USB C is widely more used today than it was in 2016. Apple could have phased out the USB A port for 2019/2020 and it would have been less complaints than it is today
Regarding the SD Card slot.... there’s a valid debate on one being useful... PERIOD!
The MacBook Pro is marketed as a Pro device.... one of those functions that falls under Pro use is Picture and video editing. I can understand the annoyance of someone who has a $8,000 Nikon who wants quickly edit something off a memory on his $3,0000 laptop and not fumble with a damn dongle all the time
In my opinion.... those who need the SD card slot though the minority outweighs the hipsters who don’t need one... I’m specifically talking about the weirdos who bought Vega MacBook Pros with i9s to do college term papers and play with instagram filters all day.... who the hell cares about their opinion.
The people who make their lively hood off of a Pro machine... their opinions matters the most
Apple needs to stop catering to the hipster dongle crowd and start paying more attention to the Pro user
1...... Just 1! USB A port wouldn’t have killed anything. USB C is widely more used today than it was in 2016. Apple could have phased out the USB A port for 2019/2020 and it would have been less complaints than it is today
Regarding the SD Card slot.... there’s a valid debate on one being useful... PERIOD!
The MacBook Pro is marketed as a Pro device.... one of those functions that falls under Pro use is Picture and video editing. I can understand the annoyance of someone who has a $8,000 Nikon who wants quickly edit something off a memory on his $3,0000 laptop and not fumble with a damn dongle all the time
In my opinion.... those who need the SD card slot though the minority outweighs the hipsters who don’t need one... I’m specifically talking about the weirdos who bought Vega MacBook Pros with i9s to do college term papers and play with instagram filters all day.... who the hell cares about their opinion.
The people who make their lively hood off of a Pro machine... their opinions matters the most
Apple needs to stop catering to the hipster dongle crowd and start paying more attention to the Pro user
I have 2013 MBP with SD card slot and .. I use external SD reader connected to USB3 because it is few times faster. These days your data transfer needs are increasing exponentially. Every year you’ve got bigger RAWs coming out of your cameras. I’m not a pro photographer but I’m sure pros will use whatever tool to make their workflow more efficient.
I agree with OP. Universal TB3 ports in MBP may be annoying but is one of best evolution apple users see. If tomorrow HDMI changes to new xx.1 standard I can buy new dongle to benefit from it, with fixed one I’ll stay with whatever was available during my laptop release.
Power to the Pro. Also, TB3 and and SD card slot wouldn't hurt, heck even a usb A wouldn't hurt at all.
I never understood people who care so much about which freaking port their phone has. It really makes absolutely no difference.
So if you want to use the same battery they currently use (83.6Wh) but use a charger that provides more than twice as much power as the current one "for performance", the logical conclusion is that the battery life of the machine will then be drastically reduced.
In case you weren't aware, the unique ability of a laptop is to run from the battery, with no power source/charger connected. If it can't do that well, it doesn't really serve its purpose.
Just like SD card slots and HDMI ports, that might be what you personally want, but don't assume everybody wants that.
Why would a desktop need a battery for main power? It's a desktop. Honestly I can't tell if you're just trying to deflect from my point that your "plan" means greatly reduced usable lifetime on battery, or if you just really don't understand what you're suggesting.
The reviews of that machine on Amazon suggest that it has about 2 hours battery life, "not doing anything serious". As opposed to the MBP, which has a slightly larger capacity battery (83.6vs75Wh) but gets 5x the life doing basic things like browsing or watching a movie.
Well you have to define what speed you want before you can clarify if it 'kills' anything.
Are you happy with a USB 2.0 port? Then I agree its probably possible to run that from the internal USB bus that is already in use.
If you want a USB 3.0/3.1Gen1 port? Well that's 5Gbps. USB 3.1Gen2 port? That's 10Gbps. So you need to consider where that bandwidth is coming from. Does it mean we lose a TB3 port, or that some of them are bandwidth constrained? That's the trade off with all these ports. To be useful they need to have bandwidth, but that bandwidth has to come from somewhere, and once the manufacturer puts it into a USB port or an SD card slot - the customer has **** all choice about how they want to use it. That's all it will do, forever.
I'm glad you brought this up actually. I just looked (for reference, not because I want one, I am by no means a photographer) at a Nikon D850 and a Nikon Z7. Both are about $2.5K, and seem to be the most expensive Nikon body you can buy (I guess the other $5.5K comes from lenses?). Anyway.
The D850, does in fact support SD cards (up to UHS-II). For those who aren't aware, UHS-II has maximum transfer rate of ~312MB/sec.
The D850 also supports, and the Z7 only supports a format called XQD, which as of v2.0, tops out at 1GB/sec.
But then, XQD has already been superseded by a NVMe based card called CFExpress, the first version of which goes up to 1.9GB/s, and the second version is expected to go up to 8GB/sec.
Now, you tell me, which "Pro" photographer is still using SD cards? As I've said time and time again in these threads: including a card reader makes even less sense than a HDMI port or a USB type-A port. HDMI at least is a pretty standard thing on TVs, and USB type-A is a very common thing. But card formats for cameras, the only ones that are standardised, are the consumer/prosumer models that all seem to use some variety of SD card.
The hipsters are the ones using the SD card slot.
I'm glad you agree my opinion matters the most.
The non-existent Pro user who's jamming his or her QXD or CFast or CFExpress card into an SD card slot?
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One less port, one less variation of cables, and (theoretically, software drivers permitting) more ability to use peripherals.
Yes it would killed 1 usbC/tb3 port and im not ok with that. If you cant embrace the future, there are so many windows OEM laptops out there with all kind of ports
Indeed and other as posted here and elsewhere.
Actually it is great, as I do use those ports, i.e., SD cards, HDMI, etc
Good for you, you have a USB-C thumb drive for 10 dollars. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You seem to take any criticism against apple personally, without accepting the fact that apple does make mistakes on occasion. Their design decision made life more difficult for many people where as other manufactoreres made the decision to include both USB-C and other ports - more is better. You're happy with apple, great, but that doesn't negate the fact that apple's design decision was a mistake for many people.
I'll probably not respond to your reply because you'll no doubt pick apart my post line by line as you seem to enjoy doing that. I'm happy with my laptop decision and I offered my opinion that apple erred. Its really not worth the hassle of getting all worked up, so I'm outta here.
No, the logical conclusion will be that the battery can be charged twice as fast.
In case you weren't aware, it is 21 century now and microprocessors can dynamically scale frequency and voltage depending on load. Apple uses CPU that can pull well over 100W alone and pairs it with 50W GPU for good measure, all while giving a measly 87W charger. But if you have one you you'll notice that while browsing this forum your CPU will actually use 0.5W with total system power consumption of around 5W. Mind blown?
You don't understand. Power supply has nothing to do with battery capacity.
... The original claim was:
Followed by:
What does any of that have to do with the speed at which the battery is charged?
And how long would you need to run the CPU and GPU at 'full power' before the combined energy of the charger and battery force them to throttle down?
What power supply? A desktop power supply? I never claimed it did. A laptop? Of course it does. The less capacity the less you can use it while unplugged. I can't believe the ridiculousness of this conversation now.
Pot, kettle.. space grey?
That's ok. The lack of response to whether the basic concept of flexibility for all, or convenience for a few is more valued says more than your words ever could. Thanks for the chat.
Not at all. I take offence at people claiming a $3K computer shouldn't have as many of the most versatile external port we've ever had, so it can have a ****ing SD card slot, with the argument of "professionals need to use this".
Claiming that making a more versatile laptop that happens to inconvenience you ever so slightly, so that others have a heap more flexibility was "a mistake" is nothing but selfishness and jumping on any excuse you can think of to complain.