Apple Killed the Mac Mini.

[Drak3]

6 hours ago, Streetguru said:

Does apple have an exclusive CPU deal with Intel, or do they not know what a Ryzen APU is?

Lower power machines, like the Mini and MacBooks, rely on features like Intel QuickSync for some of Apple's programs.

[corrado33]

1 hour ago, Streetguru said:

It's going to work with the newest one too, but they could make it more efficient if they designed the whole chassis as a heatsink, and thermally connect it to the heat generating components, air inside will transfer some heat to the case, but if it's not connected it won't be efficient.

Do you not know how thermodynamics work?

Do you not think apple considered this? Do you REALLY think their engineers are incompetent? And yes, I DO know how thermodynamics work. I've taught it in college many times. 

 

So you have the option of A: Attaching the heat pipe to the chassis... a passively cooled, possibly housed in a tight space piece with zero airflow, piece of aluminum, or an actual heatsink with much MORE surface area with a blower fan attached to it. Hmmmmmm..... wonder what they're gunna choose......

[Streetguru]

28 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Lower power machines, like the Mini and MacBooks, rely on features like Intel QuickSync for some of Apple's programs.

If the Xeons rely on AMD's GPUs, well then APUs already have that built in, the only thing AMD is missing is maybe cheap networking stuff they can sell to apple, and thunderbolt naturally.

 

 

11 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Do you REALLY think their engineers are incompetent?

They clearly are since it runs 95C and would be fixed just by adding a few mm here and there. Or they're being screwed by insane size constraint requirements/decisions.

You don't need to make the box passively cooled, you can have some active cooling, and have the case dissipate heat. There's no reason not to do both unless you just want to stick what is effectively a mac book heatsink onto it and be done with it.

[corrado33]

13 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

They clearly are since it runs 95C and would be fixed just by adding a few mm here and there. Or they're being screwed by insane size constraint requirements/decisions.

You don't need to make the box passively cooled, you can have some active cooling, and have the case dissipate heat. There's no reason not to do both unless you just want to stick what is effectively a mac book heatsink onto it and be done with it.

If you think that the engineers at the largest company in the world, worth over a TRILLION dollars, are incompetent, then you're crazier than anyone could ever be. What's very much more than likely is that the accountants said "we don't want to use this expensive part, let's use this cheap one instead" and destroyed the design. It could NOT be fixed by just adding a few mm here and there. 

 

Let's not forget that the 95C thermals was achieved using a SYNTHETIC benchmark.... in windows. 

[Streetguru]

16 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

If you think that the engineers at the largest company in the world, worth over a TRILLION dollars, are incompetent, then you're crazier than anyone

That's what a rendering load would look like, or any other load that is heavy on the CPU/iGPU.

Why can't the trillion dollar company design a product that doesn't run at 95C? The same thermal issues apply to almost every desktop/laptop they make. They already have a large margin on it as far as I can tell, surely they can spare some dollars for a better designed heatsink/case for cooling. Intel's NUC doesn't really have the same thermal issues and it has to cool a CPU and GPU, and if you aren't going to every run it at 100% load why are you even buying the mac mini in question

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3282-hades-canyon-review-intel-amd-pressure-nvidia-nuc8i7hvk
"Running FireStrike Extreme for 30 minutes, the stock Hades Canyon box reached steady state at about 76 degrees Celsius average core temperature. This is completely acceptable. The GPU also operated acceptably, at about 77 degrees Celsius, with the SSD at 64 degrees, PCH at 61 degrees, and motherboard at 59 degrees. "

[corrado33]

5 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

That's what a rendering load would look like, or any other load that is heavy on the CPU/iGPU.

Why can't the trillion dollar company design a product that doesn't run at 95C? The same thermal issues apply to almost every desktop/laptop they make. They already have a large margin on it as far as I can tell, surely they can spare some dollars for a better designed heatsink/case for cooling. Intel's NUC doesn't really have the same thermal issues and it has to cool a CPU and GPU, and if you aren't going to every run it at 100% load why are you even buying the mac mini in question

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3282-hades-canyon-review-intel-amd-pressure-nvidia-nuc8i7hvk
"Running FireStrike Extreme for 30 minutes, the stock Hades Canyon box reached steady state at about 76 degrees Celsius average core temperature. This is completely acceptable. The GPU also operated acceptably, at about 77 degrees Celsius, with the SSD at 64 degrees, PCH at 61 degrees, and motherboard at 59 degrees. "

Because they design their products with silence in mind. The mac mini was quieter than any of the other computers tested.... perfect for... say... a media pc, someone who doesn't want a loud as hell NUC right beside them.

 

You keep saying that this temperature will kill the CPU but when's the last time you saw a mac fail because of specifically a failed CPU?

 

Did you forget to mention that the lil old mac mini OUTPERFORMED the nuc you are so lovingly quoting every 2 seconds? I bet if you downclocked the CPU to the same performance as the NUC you'd have similar thermals. 

[Streetguru]

29 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

 

A media PC can be anything from an Android TV device/Roku/Firestick, the built in android on many TVs, a cheap chromebook, or a much cheaper small form factor regular PC. Not a $700 mac OS machine, that's rather unnessisary and apple even has Apple TVs for that job.

You can get a quieter system with a bigger heatsink/better cooling because you can then run the fan at a lower RPM, or make it completely passively cooled. So no they don't design products with silence in mind, if that were the case they would use bigger slower fans or more heatsink in general. Otherwise they let thing run hot for their "silence"

The NUC has a 4 core CPU, and needs to be updated, though it also has a much more powerful GPU than what's in the mac mini, but it has to cool both which would make it harder on the NUC

The CPU is not the only thing killed/life shortened by heat, it's mostly the caps that are affected in that regard, you only start to lose CPU performance if it runs hot.

The latest flaw in the macbooks affects products from 2016-2018 as an example

 

[corrado33]

1 hour ago, Streetguru said:

A media PC can be anything from an Android TV device/Roku/Firestick, the built in android on many TVs, a cheap chromebook, or a much cheaper small form factor regular PC. Not a $700 mac OS machine, that's rather unnessisary and apple even has Apple TVs for that job.

You can get a quieter system with a bigger heatsink/better cooling because you can then run the fan at a lower RPM, or make it completely passively cooled. So no they don't design products with silence in mind, if that were the case they would use bigger slower fans or more heatsink in general. Otherwise they let thing run hot for their "silence"

The NUC has a 4 core CPU, and needs to be updated, though it also has a much more powerful GPU than what's in the mac mini, but it has to cool both which would make it harder on the NUC

The CPU is not the only thing killed/life shortened by heat, it's mostly the caps that are affected in that regard, you only start to lose CPU performance if it runs hot.

The latest flaw in the macbooks affects products from 2016-2018 as an example

 

Apple doesn't focus on silence on their computers? Are you... shitting me? Really? Honestly? That's hilarious. 

 

There's absolutely no way you could passively cool that CPU. It would require a heatsink larger than the computer itself. You've obviously never researched passive heatsinks. There are reports online that the fan isn't even run at max speeds when the CPU is that high, with users reporting that the fan can spin up go 4400 RPM, which it does not reach using the default fan curve. Again, the computer is tuned for silence rather than temperature. 

 

Making it bigger is NOT an option. It's the mac mini. It's the same size as the last mac mini for good reason. Mac minis are used in many places in a server type rack to run distributed computing projects. Apple kept it the same size so that it could be a direct replacement. 

 

You keep throwing out random solutions and EVERY... SINGLE... ONE of them involves getting a bigger case. Well that's not going to happen.

 

The GPU in the NUC still sucks. Let's not forget that for the NUC you have to provide A. your own memory and storage and B. your own operating system, so go on ahead and throw $300 on top of whatever the price is. Not to mention that to get a nuc with a decent GPU you're paying WAY MORE THAN THE STANDARD MAC MINI. Prove me wrong.

 

What are you going to do with the 960esc graphics provided by the expensive NUC? Play modern games? Not well. So then what's the point of trying to put a GPU in there when the GPU is next to useless in today's gaming market? Anybody who NEEDS a GPU for a particular purpose (rendering farm or scientific computation farm) is going to buy an eGPU anyway. 

 

I would rather NOT pay for a shitty GPU and instead pay for a better CPU. 

 

This is an ENTRY level mac computer. Apple does NOT expect the user to run it pinned at 100% for days on end. The temperature won't be a problem. 

 

EDIT: 

 

THIS is a 100W PASSIVE cpu cooler. You'll notice that it's bigger than the entirety of the mac mini....

 

[Streetguru]

35 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

 

I should specify, apple does not focus on silence properly, they don't properly cool things and keep it quiet, they allow it to run hot instead of engineering better cooling, or removing ridiculous design constraints, they could easily have that CPU never reach even 85C under 100% load.

If the person buying it does not need to use 100% of the CPU or iGPU there's no reason for that "average person" to buy the device. 

This is what a 35-41W passive cooler looks like, all apple needs is 2 versions of the mac mini, a very small 35W version with an i3 CPU that has less I/O and is like $400 instead of $700, and a nicely cooled "Mac Mini Pro" that's a bit bigger, and has room for hard drives, an M.2 slot, and proper cooling of the higher end 6 core CPUs. Actually does the base $1099 even come with hyperthreading? because it comes with an i5...

They don't need to make the $1099 PC limited in internal storage, or cooling.



https://www.arctic.ac/us_en/alpine-am4-passive.html

[Granular]

10 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Home servers

A server that runs Mac OS (or Windows, lol) and requires external enclosures for any kind of redundant volume storage?

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, Granular said:

A server that runs Mac OS (or Windows, lol) and requires external enclosures for any kind of redundant volume storage?

[TechyBen]

9 hours ago, Streetguru said:

It's going to work with the newest one too, but they could make it more efficient if they designed the whole chassis as a heatsink, and thermally connect it to the heat generating components, air inside will transfer some heat to the case, but if it's not connected it won't be efficient.

Do you not know how thermodynamics work?

Don't bother arguing. I've clocked at least 3 completely false statements being argued over as if true. The trolls are not listening, you are wasting your breath.

 

[AngryBeaver]

8 hours ago, Streetguru said:

That's what a rendering load would look like, or any other load that is heavy on the CPU/iGPU.

Why can't the trillion dollar company design a product that doesn't run at 95C? The same thermal issues apply to almost every desktop/laptop they make. They already have a large margin on it as far as I can tell, surely they can spare some dollars for a better designed heatsink/case for cooling. Intel's NUC doesn't really have the same thermal issues and it has to cool a CPU and GPU, and if you aren't going to every run it at 100% load why are you even buying the mac mini in question

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3282-hades-canyon-review-intel-amd-pressure-nvidia-nuc8i7hvk
"Running FireStrike Extreme for 30 minutes, the stock Hades Canyon box reached steady state at about 76 degrees Celsius average core temperature. This is completely acceptable. The GPU also operated acceptably, at about 77 degrees Celsius, with the SSD at 64 degrees, PCH at 61 degrees, and motherboard at 59 degrees. "

Apple just sees the CPU as running under Tjmax and takes the risk on it failing early. If he fails early they will do their normal warranty shit on it... probably deny first which weeds out a few people then fix for those who are annoying enough to be a PITA. Remember Apple makes their money off of selling new products with minor upgrades. This is why you can't really upgrade most of their stuff without buying directly from them. This also means that if he CPU runs hot and is expected to die 6+ months after the warranty is over... well they are the ones that win.

 

It has been shown that people who purchase Apple products tend to keep purchasing them regardless of other factors. So they would just accept they needed a new Mac and run off and buy another. This is win win for them. They get to cheap out on a proper design and make all of these passive cooling and small form factor claims.... and when they eventually fail they get more business.

[Blademaster91]

14 hours ago, corrado33 said:

An external PSU is not something apple would do for a desktop. It doesn't fit. It's not right. People would just complain of the proprietary connector and that the brick is too heavy blah blah blah. 

 

As for thermals, yes, I'm sure that 90% of people will be using synthetic loads for hours at a time on their computer. /s Actual thermals are likely lower. 

 

Why would you want a nuc with a crappy internal GPU? What's the point? Tell me. Gaming? No it's not good enough for that.... general web browsing? Then you really don't need a gpu do you? If someone is scared of taking all of like 10 screws out to take something apart (that's 6 more than you need to remove to replace a GPU in a normal desktop) then they shouldn't' be opening up the case anyway. 

 

The mac mini is two things.

 

1. A relatively cheap mac that can be used out of the box for light use, like 75% of people would use it. (Web browsing, netflix, school work, etc.) These people don't need GPUs.

2. An expandable platform for a more power user to take advantage of. Tell me, how else are you going to get a mac with the best GPU AMD has to offer without spending $6000? What other apple computer can you even upgrade the ram? What other mac gives you this much flexibility in the build. This is as close as we get to being able to build our own sanctioned apple computer without spending a fortune. Why are you being so blind to this? 

 

You make it sound like adding an external drive would be the end of the world... when in reality I bet you have one sitting on your desk right now. It's NOT a big deal, and NVME external drives are freaking TINY. You keep saying that the sequential SSD speed doesn't matter but that wasn't the point. The point was thunderbolt 3 has the throughput to equal performance of typical internal hard drives. Period. Fast enough that a user wouldn't notice a difference. 

I seriously doubt most people would mind having a laptop type power adapter if it allowed more room inside the computer to more easily upgrade the RAM, or allow for a upgradeable SSD, or an internal GPU option for something equivalent to an RX560.

There are plenty of laptops with a 6 core CPU and a GPU that can handle sustained loads, as a desktop the thermals shouldn't be so high. Linus mentioned that the high thermals especially aren't good since it has soldered storage and a T2 chip, if anything fails due to heat the whole motherboard has to be replaced.

No I meant the Hades Canyon NUC, the GPU in that is impressive and all it needs is a refresh to a Coffee Lake 6 core. But a GPU swap in a normal desktop is easy with philips screws, most people wouldn't want to have to buy a special tool and take apart their whole Mac Mini to upgrade the RAM.

I think the mac mini is fine as a basic work and browsing desktop, but for the price of the Mini with an i5 and 16GB of ram, there are a lot of other cheaper options for a work and browsing machine. Most people probably have an external drive on their desk, but there isn't much of a point of the mac mini being such a small form factor if you have to attach external drives, and as mentioned there is more latency with external drives which some might be able to notice.

[AngryBeaver]

Once again another post is lost

The run down of it was this

 

I pulled up a NUC with a 8th gen i7 with 4.5 ghz boost and hyper-threading for 465.

I priced a 1tb m.2 at 130 for a 860

added a 1tb 7200 " 2.5 drive for 50

added 2x4gb of ram for 50

 

Put the total at around 600

 

Then I compared it to the 800 dollar mac mini which has

a quad core i3 at 3.6ghz without hyper-threading

8gb of ram

128gb ssd

 

I then pointed out why it was not worth the extra $200 price tag.

 

I just do not think that having the apple logo and using their OS is worth $200 more for much lower specs. Now I know currently the intel has released the 6+ core nucs, but they aren't far out and the pricing will be very similar to what I just quoted for a 6-core intel nuc. We just need to wait for the 9th gen variants to start hitting. I mean these devices were already a niche market, but I just don't understand what Apple is thinking here. Don't get me wrong I know all of the Apple fans will throw money at them and praise them for how great they are, but in reality the value just isn't there.

 

*edit*
Now here is where it gets interesting you can buy an i5 NUC8i5BEH1

 

With a 3.8 ghz Quad core for $358

add 2x4gb of ram for $50

Toss in a 128gb m.2 SSD for $30

 

So for $438

 

You can basically clone the specs of the Mac Mini for about half the price. Think on that for a minute. Same specs, HALF THE PRICE.

[TechyBen]

Wow, I did not think I'd see this:

 

People are really seeing the man behind the curtains now!!!

 

[corrado33]

6 hours ago, AngryBeaver said:

Once again another post is lost

The run down of it was this

 

I pulled up a NUC with a 8th gen i7 with 4.5 ghz boost and hyper-threading for 465.

I priced a 1tb m.2 at 130 for a 860

added a 1tb 7200 " 2.5 drive for 50

added 2x4gb of ram for 50

 

Put the total at around 600

 

Then I compared it to the 800 dollar mac mini which has

a quad core i3 at 3.6ghz without hyper-threading

8gb of ram

128gb ssd

 

I then pointed out why it was not worth the extra $200 price tag.

 

I just do not think that having the apple logo and using their OS is worth $200 more for much lower specs. Now I know currently the intel has released the 6+ core nucs, but they aren't far out and the pricing will be very similar to what I just quoted for a 6-core intel nuc. We just need to wait for the 9th gen variants to start hitting. I mean these devices were already a niche market, but I just don't understand what Apple is thinking here. Don't get me wrong I know all of the Apple fans will throw money at them and praise them for how great they are, but in reality the value just isn't there.

 

*edit*
Now here is where it gets interesting you can buy an i5 NUC8i5BEH1

 

With a 3.8 ghz Quad core for $358

add 2x4gb of ram for $50

Toss in a 128gb m.2 SSD for $30

 

So for $438

 

You can basically clone the specs of the Mac Mini for about half the price. Think on that for a minute. Same specs, HALF THE PRICE.

Try again.

 

This time include a LEGAL OS (and no, the keys on g2a are not... legal)  (that's not linux because who the hell uses linux). Parts that aren't bottom of the barrel and that are actually equivalent to apple's hardware (your $30 SATA SSD will get torn apart by apples storage), and parts not on sale because of christmas. Then add an assembly fee (because apple needs to pay it's employees) and then add whatever markup so that apple can make money. I bet your number gets a lot closer to the actual number. 

 

The NUC runs at freaking 85-90 degrees. Is that... SO much better than the 95 that the mini runs at? Keep in mind that the NUC specifically uses a low power laptop CPU, where as the mac mini actually uses a desktop processor. Also, can you buy the nuc with 10 Gb ethernet to make it a truly useful server? Na.

 

And once again, you're arguing that you can build a computer cheaper than you can buy a prebuilt... which... I will say for the 3rd time... IS THE SAME FOR EVERY PREBUILT COMPUTER EVER. 

13 hours ago, Granular said:

A server that runs Mac OS (or Windows, lol) and requires external enclosures for any kind of redundant volume storage?

You mean... like every server ever?

 

Do you really think linus has petabytes of storage in his... server? No... no he does not. It's in a NAS. Which is... you know.... standard... for servers.....

 

https://fleetnetwork.ca/products/hp-storageworks-d2700-hard-drive-enclosure-25-x-2-5-front-accessible-sas-sas-rack-mountable-aj941a.html?variant=44594&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5rOhhq2q3wIVEtVkCh1RrgYvEAQYBCABEgL91vD_BwE

[William Payne]

I have been a long long time windows user and a shorter relatively Mac OS user. I like Mac OS. I like the simplicity of it. I like how easy it is to find things. I like that I don't get errors. I like the dumbed down aspect of it where it is just simple. I have no delusions of becoming the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. I have no interest in customising the interface or tinkering with software. 

 

A computer to me is just a tool to allow me to do work. I am not a tinkerer and honestly I can count on less than one hand how many games I play and I can't remember the last time I actually played one of them. 

 

People will argue until the end of time about what is best but honestly whats best is what allows you to do your work without restriction. If you want to tinker and mess about with things...;. that is fine, buy the appropriate machine to do that. 

 

It is the same debate with iphone and android. Who cares. If you want heaps of freedom to customise than fine go android. But for many of us out there like myself. We just don't care. I just want my phone to work and do what it does when I need it to. 

 

Oh and to add. If I buy an apple product. Every new version of the operating system is absolutely free of charge. If I want to get another version of Windows I have to spend a crap load to buy it. 

If I do for some reason need to buy a version of Mac OS I can buy an old version from Apple for cheap and just update it to the latest version. 

 

[AngryBeaver]

4 hours ago, corrado33 said:

Try again.

 

This time include a LEGAL OS (and no, the keys on g2a are not... legal)  (that's not linux because who the hell uses linux). Parts that aren't bottom of the barrel and that are actually equivalent to apple's hardware (your $30 SATA SSD will get torn apart by apples storage), and parts not on sale because of christmas. Then add an assembly fee (because apple needs to pay it's employees) and then add whatever markup so that apple can make money. I bet your number gets a lot closer to the actual number. 

 

The NUC runs at freaking 85-90 degrees. Is that... SO much better than the 95 that the mini runs at? Keep in mind that the NUC specifically uses a low power laptop CPU, where as the mac mini actually uses a desktop processor. Also, can you buy the nuc with 10 Gb ethernet to make it a truly useful server? Na.

 

And once again, you're arguing that you can build a computer cheaper than you can buy a prebuilt... which... I will say for the 3rd time... IS THE SAME FOR EVERY PREBUILT COMPUTER EVER. 

You mean... like every server ever?

 

Do you really think linus has petabytes of storage in his... server? No... no he does not. It's in a NAS. Which is... you know.... standard... for servers.....

 

https://fleetnetwork.ca/products/hp-storageworks-d2700-hard-drive-enclosure-25-x-2-5-front-accessible-sas-sas-rack-mountable-aj941a.html?variant=44594&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5rOhhq2q3wIVEtVkCh1RrgYvEAQYBCABEgL91vD_BwE

First off I can toss on a Linux distro that looks and function very closely to Linux. So no price increase from that. Now if someone did want to toss on windows they can run windows 10 unregistered for 100% free. If they want to register it the most they would pay would be around $100 from a legitimate retailer, but you can also get it for around 49.99 on various deals from places like microcenter, bestbuy, newegg, amazon, etc. So you can easily use the unregistered version for 3-6 months until it goes on sale. Even at full price it doesn't drastically change my points.

 

The first build was using quality components and if not for the point I was trying to match the specs of the apple machine I would have gone with a 256gb SSD for 50... there were only like 3-4 128gb drives even offered on partspicker for m.2.

 

A Nuc isn't a custom build. You add the Ram and m.2. This is a task that takes less than 5 minutes and even someone with no tech background can watch a youtube video and pull it off. Then there is the fact that you can actually buy the nuc WITH the components. They have Nuc Kits that come with everything already installed.

 

Now you jump to servers. First off the fact you think you need to attempt to school me in server/nas setups is laughable. I am not even recommending this for use as a server, but if you are bringing up storage because the nuc has more storage options than the mac mini then you are correct it does. It has an M.2 slot and room for 1 - 2.5" drive. 

 

Honestly, I feel you are just arguing for arguments sake. You didn't actually come at me with a very valid argument. The truth is that the Mac Mini might be good value compared to other over-priced apple products, but when it comes to the pc world as a whole... it just isn't competitive. 

[Granular]

9 hours ago, corrado33 said:

You mean... like every server ever?

Do you really think linus has petabytes of storage in his... server? No... no he does not. It's in a NAS. Which is... you know.... standard... for servers.....

The thing you linked to is not a NAS, it's a drive enclosure. The storage in it is not attached to a network, it's attached to a SAS interface.

There are many server setups that don't involve storage being in external chassis or on a dedicated host, especially for home servers, which the poster I was replying to mentioned.

And even if your storage is external, or you don't need that much, you would typically want what little storage your server has locally to be redundant, which is something you can't achieve with only a single internal drive.

[TechyBen]

12 hours ago, corrado33 said:

Try again.

 

Linux. There are hundreds or thousands of companies offering Nuc Prebuilts...

 

Stop trolling. XD

[kirashi]

On 12/17/2018 at 5:02 PM, corrado33 said:

You do realize there is a thing called "Making money" and you can't implement every single thing you want right?

Um.... "making money" and "not implementing things" are not mutually exclusive right? For example, I'd absolutely be interested in buying a 13 inch MacBook "Pro" if it included 1x HDMI & 1x USB-A port, in addition to 2 or more USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3 ports, alongside a full size SD card slot. In fact, I'd even be willing to pay $300 more for a machine with these ports built-in over buying then subsequently forgetting the dongles at home or losing the dongles completely, even though I'd save $140 by purchasing the dongles instead.

 

This is a direct example of making more money because a manufacturer decided to implement every single thing I need into their product. Because most manufacturers are following Apple they won't see a penny of my money spent on their products so long as alternatives remain available. Although I fear the days of providing consumers and working professionals with functional products is coming to an end as manufacturers continue to design their products to be non-repairable in an effort to maximize profits without a care for the environment, but I digress.

 

 

That being said, there is no perfect laptop for me, because no manufacturer yet makes a modular laptop at an affordable price. Dell's newest XPS 15 9575 brings a touchscreen, however, it drops all legacy ports, and substitutes the full size SD card slot for a microSD card slot. The XPS 15 9570 non-touch variant (and my last gen 9560) only have 1 USB Type-C port, but that's totally fine until we start to see ALL other products moving to USB-C - until that happens, I see no point in using a product (Apple or otherwise) that removes functionality I need on a daily basis in order to make money. (Not about to replace my camera gear just because I don't feel like carrying dongles around.)

 

TO BE CLEAR this isn't me hating on Apple - this is me hating on manufacturers that don't cater to their #1 money maker: the customer. There's a fine line between the stupidity of "the consumer is always right" statement and taking away all choice from the consumer - once you cross it as a manufacturer, you have to be really careful about how you design, implement, & support your products if you intend to grow your customer base.