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Table of Contents
In summary:
- PCWorld reports that premium laptops increasingly sacrifice essential ports like USB-A, HDMI, and headphone jacks in favor of thinner designs, forcing users to buy dongles.
- Budget laptops often provide better port selection than expensive models, while MacBook Pros retain more connectivity options than many high-end Windows laptops.
- This design-over-functionality trend creates practical challenges for users who need built-in ports for daily tasks and productivity.
I’ve reviewed a lot of laptops for PCWorld and I’ve been noticing something I don’t like: the more expensive the laptop, the fewer ports it tends to have. It’s been trending this way for a while now, but lately it’s gotten a lot worse—and that sucks.
In my time as a laptop reviewer, I’ve seen budget options packed with ports, sometimes even managing to fit Ethernet jacks into their small frames. But I’ve also seen luxurious top-end models with almost no ports at all, and that’s downright wrong. Some even omit the headphone jack!
These days, if you’re in the market for a premium laptop, there are some real gotchas to be aware of… and connectivity is one of them.
Premium laptops often skimp on ports
Laptop manufacturers seem to think customers want to pay more money for fewer ports, but that’s nonsense. The idea that a professional spending $3,000 on a 4.5-pound laptop doesn’t want the option of plugging in an HDMI cable is simply ridiculous to me. But going by the many laptops I’ve reviewed, laptop manufacturers don’t agree with me. They think you’ll pay extra if it means fewer ports.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
Here are a few examples of laptops I’ve reviewed over the past year alone that exhibit this sort of attitude towards ports:
- The Dell 16 Premium is a $3,199 high-end laptop with discrete Nvidia graphics, but it omits HDMI and USB-A ports.
- The Acer Aspire Go 15 is a brilliant $499 laptop that delivers both USB-A ports and an HDMI port.
- The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 is a $1,899 premium laptop that lacks a headphone jack. You get two USB-C ports… and that’s it!
- The HP EliteBook 6 G1q with 5G is a $1,695 business laptop with 5G driving up its price, but it somehow manages to also pack Ethernet and HDMI into a compact mobility-focused machine.
Over and over, it’s the same story played out: manufacturers design high-end laptops with aesthetics, thinness, and tapered edges in mind while budget laptops are designed for practicality. Somewhere out there, I’m sure there’s a laptop designer who’s dreaming about wireless charging with the ultimate goal of creating a port-free laptop. Ugh.
If you ask me, it feels like the true luxury day-to-day experience these days is to opt for a “budget” laptop that doesn’t force you to plug in a USB hub or hook up a high-speed dock just to output to HDMI, connect a traditional USB-A drive, or even plug in a pair of headphones.
Business laptops tout their ports
What’s amusing is that manufacturers are pushing sleek designs with minimal ports as premium options, but when it comes to business laptops they’re all about marketing the port selection. “This laptop has lots of ports so you don’t have to worry about taking a dongle with you,” they say. “That’s a big upgrade for workers.”
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
It’s absolutely true and PC manufacturers should tout it. But PC makers themselves are to blame for ports becoming a rare commodity.
A budget laptop has plenty of ports, a premium laptop costs extra because it removes those ports, and then a business laptop built for work costs extra and delivers a reasonable selection of ports. That’s the landscape we find ourselves in right now.
Even Apple’s MacBook Pro has HDMI and a headphone jack
You might assume this state of affairs is Apple’s fault and that PC manufacturers are chasing Apple’s design choices. That’s not true. MacBooks offer more ports than “luxury” Windows laptops.
For starters, all of Apple’s MacBooks still have audio jacks. Meanwhile, a handful of Lenovo machines don’t have any headphone jacks, including the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 and Lenovo Yoga Book 9i. If 3.5mm audio is important to you, beware of buying high-end Lenovo laptops!
Foundry
To be fair, Apple has dropped the USB-A port from its machines and the base MacBook Air only offers two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports. Still, all MacBook Pro models have HDMI ports and SDXC card slots.
So no, Apple isn’t to blame here. Only a PC manufacturer would sell a high-end $3,199 machine for professionals and skip the HDMI port. Only a PC maker would decide a laptop doesn’t need an audio jack. Even Apple refuses to remove the traditional 3.5mm audio jack from laptops!
Thin laptops are the new small bezels
Thin laptops are nice to hold. When I pick up a review laptop and feel smooth metal and glass with a tapered edge and an almost impossibly light weight, I’m immediately impressed.
But once I try to plug in devices and realize there’s no USB-A or HDMI, I wince. If there’s no 3.5mm audio jack, I scratch my head in confusion. That’s not what I want from a laptop. Instead of just carrying a laptop, you now have to carry a laptop plus a hub.
It reminds me of the thin bezel craze a few years ago. Laptop reviewers focused so much on the size of the bezels around a laptop’s screen—the smaller the bezel, the more premium the machine.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
Personally, I don’t see the point. Yes, a streamlined laptop design can be nice. But you can see exactly how the bezels look in photos—you don’t need me measuring the bezel with a ruler and assigning a laptop review score based on the size of a machine’s bezel. There’s way more to a laptop than that.
In the same way, laptops are increasingly differentiating themselves more on design than functionality. If removing the HDMI port or even the headphone jack makes the laptop look like an impressive art piece in a photo or in-store display, manufacturers will go for it.
Ports aren’t the only things that get sacrificed either. Sometimes a beautiful laptop will feel light as a feather but lack the battery life to get me through a workday. Why? Because the laptop manufacturer has prioritized light weight over long battery life.
Note the ports when buying a laptop
If you’re buying a laptop, I always recommend paying particular attention to its ports. There’s a good chance you’ll want at least HDMI, an SD card slot, and maybe even Ethernet. Extra USB-C ports are nice, too, especially on laptops that charge via USB-C. (I like to see a USB-C port on each side of the laptop so you can plug in on either side to charge.)
When we review laptops here at PCWorld, we always list the ports they offer, and I always take that into consideration when writing up the pros and cons of a laptop. That’s how important they are.
Sadly, if you want a ports-packed laptop these days, you’ll probably have better luck with a budget laptop than a premium one. On the other hand, if you almost never plug anything into your laptop, you might love a thin-and-light premium laptop with minimal ports. As for me? I don’t want to live with a laptop so “luxurious” that it has no audio jack.