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Laptop Ports: Is USB-C only fine, or should I get HDMI,USB,Audio if I need them?

25 points johnnybzane | 1 comments | 18 Oct 24 19:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.23s | source

I'm on the market for a new laptop (with windows OS) and I've noticed quite a few laptops are USB-C ports only now.

I even saw one laptop that only had 2 USB-C ports, with 1 of them to use for charging. (Dell XPS 13 for example)

It's very important for me to connect my laptop to a monitor, and to use earbuds, be connected to ethernet, and to have a charger going, all at the same time. I have an old laptop with an HDMI output port, USB, and direct audio jack for earbuds.

I'm struggling to accept that dongles are fast enough or reliable enough. What if I get a HDMI dongle or audio dongle and the connection keeps dropping on my video calls? A direct connections feels "safer" to me than a USB-C splitter.

What do you think. Should I still look for laptops with direct HDMI/Audio/USB connections, or are USB-C only laptops still reliable enough even if you need a dozen different dongles?

1. rtchau ◴[23 Oct 24 06:41 UTC] No.41922448[source]▶
I survived with a 12" Macbook and a solitary USB-C port. The one difference is that I did have an audio jack as well.

I found a monitor that had a USB-C connection with charging, a USB hub, ethernet etc. (of which there were very few back in 2015). When I was somewhere other than my own desk, the Apple HDMI dongle was more than good enough.

The only "this sucks" scenario was when I had the opportunity to use multiple external models, but couldn't. Aside from that, I don't regret getting that laptop.