How Many Ports are Enough For a Laptop?
Today, the evolution of thin and light notebooks is still in progress. Taking Dell’s new generation XPS13 (9315) as an example, it may be the ultimate form of Windows thin and light notebooks in the future – the new XPS 13 compresses the thickness of the body to 13.9mm (extremely thin) and weighs about 1.17kg (more excellent), Portability is top-notch. The reason why this product can be so thin is that the official has redesigned its internal structure, using the smallest motherboard in Dell’s history, and it is also the first device to use LPDDR5 package-on-package memory. The size of the SSD is Only 11.4mm × 13mm. However, in order to achieve the ultimate thin and light design, the new XPS 13 has made greater sacrifices in the interface, and the whole machine only provides 2 USB Type-C interfaces.
You read that right, there are 2 USB Type-C ports only, this time even the 3.5mm headphone jack has been canceled. If you want to listen to music, you can only use Bluetooth headphones (speakers), or refer to smartphones that use USB Type-C ports. Wired headphones (speakers) too. Fortunately, the USB Type-C of the new XPS 13 supports the Thunderbolt 4 protocol, which can solve the expansion needs through the docking station.
Similar to the new XPS 13, there are Lenovo Yoga Air 13s 2022 Carbon with a thickness of 14.8mm, etc. This product also only comes standard with 2 USB Type-C (Thunderbolt 4) interfaces, and the weight is as low as 984g. The commonality of such products is that they rely on the interface of the USB Type-C standard to “break the world”. The XiaomiBook Pro 14 with a thickness of only 14.9mm also has only 3 USB Type-C but retains the headphone jack.
The question is, is the USB Type-C Ports really that good? For ordinary consumers, how many types and numbers of interfaces should a notebook come standard with?
The worst of the USB Type-C interfaces is that they only support 5Gbps data transmission. The slightly better ones support 10Gbps transmission and DP video output and PD charging. The most perfect ones are Thunderbolt 4 or USB4.
Nowadays, notebooks are the only PCs in many families. They need to undertake various learning, office, and entertainment tasks, and inevitably deal with various peripherals such as monitors, flash drives, mobile hard disks, printers, scanners, and hand-painted boards. At this point, the type and number of standard interfaces on the notebook itself will directly affect our experience.
The aforementioned Dell’s new XPS 13 and Lenovo Yoga Air 13s 2022 Carbon are an absolute minority, and their potential users don’t need to deal with complex productivity tasks, even with just two Thunderbolt 4s. But for most ordinary notebooks, it should be equipped with at least 3 USB ports, 1 HDMI, 3.5mm audio port, and a traditional power jack (to avoid precious USB Type-C resources being occupied by chargers).
RedmiBook Pro 15 2022 is a typical large-screen thin and light notebook. Its interface design is relatively reasonable. It is equipped with one Thunderbolt 4 (Core version)/full-featured USB Type-C (Ryzen version, 10Gbps), one supports data transmission and Charging USB Type-C (10Gbps), 1 USB3.2 Gen1 (5Gbps), HDMI, audio interface, and UHS-II high-speed SD card reader.
For gaming notebooks, it is best to be equipped with 4 USBs and keep the RJ45 network cable interface to avoid the occasional risk of delay encountered in wireless network games. The interface of Xiazhong Savior R9000P is a very luxurious type. It is equipped with 3 USB Type-C (both 10Gbps, 1 supports video output and 1 supports 135W charging), 3 USB3.2 Gen1, HDMI, and RJ45 are also not absent.
Of course, there is friction between theory and the real world. Constrained by the thickness of the fuselage, cost, and product positioning, it is difficult for us to find the existence of abundant and abundant interfaces, so we must learn to choose and adapt to the peripherals required for connection through docking stations and adapters.
For example, for users engaged in futures trading, video creation, and multi-task parallel processing, it is necessary to build a multi-screen display environment, which requires the notebook to be equipped with a USB Type-C or Thunderbolt interface that supports video output while the HDMI interface is standard. Moreover, it is also necessary to consider issues such as how to charge and connect other USB Type-C interface flash drives and peripherals without a standard power jack if the full-featured USB Type-C interface is occupied by the display (with the help of an expansion dock).
At present, through the standard USB interface, a larger number of USB, card readers, and RJ45 network cable interfaces can be expanded. If your notebook has only one USB interface, this kind of docking station is still unavoidable.
In addition, we must also give priority to products equipped with Thunderbolt 4 (USB4) or full-featured USB Type-C interfaces. Only these interfaces can be used with multi-functional docking stations including charging and video output to achieve one-to-many (out-of-species) Set) the established goal, to make up for the lack of the type and quantity of the notebook’s own interface to the greatest extent.
Xiaomitoday also strongly recommends that you prepare a dual-mode keyboard and mouse set for your notebook that supports both USB wired and Bluetooth wireless. When playing games and other low-latency operations that require low-latency operations, one USB interface is occupied and controlled by wired means; The USB interface is used to connect other peripherals.
In short, today’s notebooks are not afraid of a small number of interfaces but are afraid of the poor function of the USB Type-C interface. The more fully prepared the notebook’s own interface is, the more you can save the cost of purchasing a docking station by yourself, and stay away from the burden and cumbersomeness of carrying (dock) and use. It can be said that in 2022, any new product that does not come standard with USB Type-C, or USB Type-C that only supports data transmission is not worth choosing, and we also need to give priority when purchasing peripherals such as flash drives and mobile hard drives. Pick models designed with a USB Type-C interface to meet future trends and trends.
