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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 | 4 comments | 18 Oct 24 19:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.443s | 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?

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solardev ◴[21 Oct 24 19:34 UTC] No.41907637[source]▶
Contrary opinion: USB-C sucks for any sort of demanding use case, especially video (i.e., gaming monitors). There are so many different versions and specs that all fit into one lookalike cable/connector but which will fail in various ways, usually at some combination of refresh rate, resolution, HDR, etc. HDMI is so much more reliable (though not without its issues) and DisplayPort is even better, though that's rare to see on a laptop. If your monitor supports a USB-C input, there's a good chance it will work with your laptop (especially Windows), but the situation on Linux and Mac can be very different. If it only has a HDMI input and you don't want to waste time exploring the different USB-C video modes, a HDMI output on the laptop and good cable will make it much, much simpler.

Audio is probably fine... the standards there don't change as much.

Ethernet is hit-or-miss for me. On my Macbook with an expensive ($300ish) dock, the port works 90% of the time... 10% of the time it'll just randomly shut off until restart. Another USB-C ethernet dongle (with only that one port) works 100% of the time. But either is a PITA compared to a built-in ethernet port in the laptop.

I don't have a choice now that I've gone to Macs, but if I were buying a Windows/Linux workstation PC, I'd absolutely get all the ports I can – ESPECIALLY HDMI and ethernet. USB-C is a nice idea with terrible real-world implementations that are usually 75% compatible but almost never 100%.

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bestham ◴[23 Oct 24 06:24 UTC] No.41922358[source]▶
USB-C IS DisplayPort (among other things). You can get from USB-C to DP "passively", just by signalling the right thing to the USB-C port. The mode is called Alt-Mode and gives you DisplayPort and USB2 or USB3 speeds as a side channel (depending on the amount of bandwidth consumed by the DisplayPort stream). Barring that, some USB-C docks rely on a USB data stream (DisplayLink) and not a DisplayPort stream. Avoid these.
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1. oefnak ◴[23 Oct 24 06:41 UTC] No.41922449[source]▶
No, you're talking about Thunderbolt. USB-C is the shape of the port, but Displayport over USB-C is called Thunderbolt.

I have had laptops that had USB-C ports that didn't support video.

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2. silon42 ◴[23 Oct 24 06:52 UTC] No.41922512[source]▶
But there is DP Alternate Mode which is basically allows USB PD + Display Port + USB 2.0

One of the use cases is "almost passive" USB-C dock (typically it has USB 2.0 hub + Ethernet on it).

3. blahlabs ◴[23 Oct 24 06:52 UTC] No.41922513[source]▶
I don't think this is correct either. The USB C port has to support DP Alt Mode, which not all do, but it doesn't have to be a Thunderbolt port.

More than anything this probably highlights what a mess the standards are.

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4. buildbot ◴[23 Oct 24 06:55 UTC] No.41922531[source]▶
You are correct: https://www.cablematters.com/Blog/USB-C/what-is-dp-alt-mode