this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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It's perhaps more important for non-gaming laptops, because if you're buying a gaming laptop, you're probably also buying a higher-end monitor (so USB-C/Thunderbolt). For a regular laptop, having HDMI means you can connect to a TV and play a video, share a screen, etc. You're more likely to do that with a more portable laptop than a bulky gaming laptop.
The alternative is needing to bring a dongle everywhere. On a non-gaming laptop, I only really need like three ports: USB-A for older stuff, USB-C for dock and power, and HDMI for TVs and monitors. An extra USB-A would be nice, but hardly necessary (I'd prefer an ethernet port, but I think that ship has sailed).
Here are the things I use most frequently:
So outside of charging and plugging into the dock at my desk, I have zero use for USB-C. So I only need one USB-C, because the only time I use it is when I can just use a dock at my desk. I have never used more than 2 USB-C ports at a single time (and that only happens at work, when I'm rechanging the laptop while plugging into the USB-C monitor), and that's only because my work monitor doesn't provide enough power to charge my laptop.
Obviously you can't use an HDMI port that you don't have, but I gotta ask: if you had one of the newer MBPs with built-in HDMI, would you be using that HDMI port? Because it sounds like you wouldn't, and that you'd still rely on the USB-C dock to do everything.
And that's been my position this whole thread. I think that the MBP's return of the HDMI port was greeted with lots of fanfare, but I don't actually know anyone who switched back to HDMI.
Yes, absolutely. At work, we use MBPs, and I often ask someone with the port to connect to the TV so I don't have to go find a dongle (and those dongles can be very finicky). I've had to work around the lack of an HDMI port, and it's been incredibly annoying for the almost 4-years I've had my MBP.
My personal laptop has an HDMI port, and I also use it frequently to connect to our TV. It's something I'd use weekly, if not more frequently. This laptop is older, yet I still prefer using it to the MBP, largely because of the HDMI port.
Ok, thanks for talking me through this. I have completely unused HDMI ports on my laptops and I'm genuinely curious about those who are using theirs.
I honestly only got a USB-C hub because the laptop didn't have an HDMI port, so if we count the USB-C hub, the HDMI port is the most used port on both my work and home laptops. If we ignore the USB-C hub, it's second only to the USB-A port, which my kids use for a mouse to play Minecraft (I rarely use it personally).