I kind of agree. Maybe it's just me but I would never use the HDMI port on a MacBook and if you are including an SD card slot you really ought to include CFExpress too. Personally I was happy with 4 TB3/4 ports. I'm just glad I can still charge from either side.
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SD Card Slot in New MacBook Pros Supports UHS-II With Speeds Up to 250 MB/s [Updated]
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Once again,
Company X must do Y => I want company X to do Y.
Y is outdated. Company X should do Z instead => I was looking for an excuse to upgrade from Y to Z.
Company X must do Y => I want company X to do Y.
Y is outdated. Company X should do Z instead => I was looking for an excuse to upgrade from Y to Z.
I have an adapter for my 2014 13". But always mounted SD card prevents hibernation. I use it empty now :/
The reintroduction of SD card slot may help me consider upgrading my 1 year old M1 MBP….maybe.
That’s what I currently do with my MacBook Air 2017. It is so convenient.
But I also have SD cards to extend storage, for things that don’t need high speed read and write.
Looking forward to an M1 Pro machine.
Kinda wish Apple included UHS-III as well. Cameras might not have it, but if you use a UHS-III SD card, you could get the pictures onto your computer faster.
Where are these UHS-III cards? I have only seen UHS-II and the dropping of UHS-III in favour of SD Express. And of note UHS-III tops out at 624MB, still a far cry from CF Express A, B, and even SD Express.
My question exactly. I'd love to not have a card sticking way out from the side of the machine.
I had thought of it but I would try nonetheless.
There are rugged industrial SD cards but they don’t make them 1TB (price would be bananas).
Maybe in the coming years some company will create a 1-2TB flush SSD-in-SD_shell product specifically for Macbook Pro users.
Yes, I would definitely have liked an HDMI in/out port, because I often connect a camera to my computer for web-casts, (via an HDMI-USB3 capture dongle).
As for new camera formats...only "kinda". I know of no SDExpress compatibile-cameras and there are only a dozen or so that take CFExpress (some of which also accept SD-XC.
I would also have liked a hybrid CFExpress-A / SDXC reader, but I can see Apple's point of view - SD is the defacto standard and will likely remain so for the expected lifetime of these machines. Once we know whether CFExpress-A/B or SDExpress becomes the new standard, I could see new machines adopting a hybrid reader that will cater for the top-two - SD + [CFExpress OR SDExpress]
Super happy to hear this and see improvements. I have a 2015 MacBook pro still, and the Sd card slot permanently has a 256gb micro SD card inserted into a flush mounted adapter. It makes for an awesome scratch disk for media I want to take mobile.
This feature is greatly missed on my current M1 MacBook pro.
This feature is greatly missed on my current M1 MacBook pro.
I'm curious -- what content do you watch on an HDMI display that runs faster than 60 frames a second?
Omg additional storage, I didn’t even think of that!! Wonder how much it’ll poke out when a card is in and whether there will be some discreet sized SD cards that sit flush with the enclosure
Should have put "in theory". Just did a quick look at Sandisk and Lexar, and all SD cards were UHS-I or II
Rugged SD cards optimised for random access? SSD into SD shell would be QLC or even PLC (five bits per cell), which hurts longevity.
Maybe they can figure out using other technologies to increase the longevity but physics are physics.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
A key issue with this mentality is an all, multi-use port computer then requires DONGLES to connect everything else which hasn't/doesn't embrace the "one port to rule them all." I respect your opinion here, so hopefully you can respect mine: I'd rather have useful ports I'd have to otherwise get on some extra dongle(s)/hub BUILT IN than having to carry a special cable/dongle/hub too... so I can actually and directly connect commonplace devices. It doesn't do anything for me to take some "the future" stand of expecting the rest of the tech world to comply with some single port a vendor decides (for us all) and then just deal with the inability to connect things unless I'm also carrying a variety of special cables/dongles or a hub. IMO, I consider that more negative than positive.
Yes, in an ideal world: one simple jack would connect to everything. But that future was attempted what- about 5 years AGO now- and most stuff to be connected still doesn't have a direct connection option for that port. It's good to see Apple move back towards delivering more utility for buyers of multi-thousand-dollar computers instead of standing firm on only ONE jack and have most users have to keep juggling cables/dongles/hubs to actually connect those super machines to just about everything else. Yes, a few of us can get by with the one chosen connection... but I bet most of us Apple people can't without the burden/mess of special cables/dongles/hub.
IMO, I'd rather have the most-used jacks built in instead of having to find the right, extra thing(s) to get them on some external piece of tech. With Apple ports, I'll have more confidence that they will probably "just work" when needed. With lesser-name hubs/dongles, there has to be more of a layer of "hope."
Some people may NEVER connect anything to HDMI, 3.5mm, Magsafe 3 or this SD slot. But then again, some people may never connect anything to Thunderbolt 4 or USB-4 too. However, those people are NOT all people. As visible in this very thread, there are a number seeing the intended use for the slot as useful... and thinking about other uses of the slot that could be helpful for almost anyone. Add me to the group that sometimes use an SD slot and regularly use an HDMI connection. It's GREAT to have those back inside again! Retire the iffy dongles!!! Kick that extra junk/weight OUT of the laptop bag.
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CFExpress is a much larger, professional format that replaces XQD (they have an identical form factor). Are you aware of any laptops with either XQD or CFExpress slots?
Are you aware of any laptops currently available with SD Express card slots?
Are you aware of any laptops on the market that allow video ingest/capture through their built-in HDMI port?
Your claim that Apple's machines are "outdated" seems a bit... off, to me anyway.
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In both cases they're practically emergency only type ports. USB C will handle everything else.
It's maddening to me that they put all this focus on ports and then didn't even include the most modern wi-fi (6e/6ghz)
It's also MANY times larger than the SD card format. There's no way it would fit on these or essentially any other laptops, outside of maybe large Toughbooks made for very specific industrial applications.
Why do laptops need SIM slots? Most people I know use their phones or dedicated MiFi devices to provide high-speed cellular data for their laptops. It's what I do (or did, when I used to leave the house more often).
This SD slot is as fast as SD will ever be. The whole 300 MB/s read and write is the limit of the technology until it is replaced with SD Express for the low end or CF Express Type A. In the mean time Canon and Nikon are using CF Express type B which replaces CF, CFast, and XQD. With CFast and XQD being over 400 MB/s (XQD could have made it to 1 GB/s).
Sony are currently migrating all of their pro cameras from dual SD UHS-II to dual CF Express A with a SD combo slot so users can transition. Using the fastest SD card in a Sony camera will lock up the camera every time the buffer runs out so Sony users are very quickly moving over to CF Express A. With all the big players moving over to Cf Express the chances of SD Express hitting off looks slim especially since it is just as expensive to implement(costing PCIe lanes).
So no, the slot isn't outdated. It is the best that will manage and in the future we might see it replaced with a SD Express or CF Express A or B slot. The main issue with CF Express is that Sony decided to go against common wisdom and implemented the smaller sized card format that isn't as fast as type B (but still a good 3x faster than SD).
Don't make the fatal mistake that many people do of confusing backup with cloud syncing! iCloud might be a recovery option if your local storage device fails, but if you accidentally delete or overwrite something, a file gets corrupted or your files get infected with malware then all of that will also be reflected in your cloud-based files.
I still remember reading a desperate post from a few years ago where a user had wiped his local photo library as it seemed to be corrupted, with the intention of restoring it from the cloud, but when he'd deleted every photo locally, that deletion had been synced to his cloud-based library meaning he lost everything - including all the photos of his children growing up.