Microsoft reveals why no Surface device has Thunderbolt and why you can’t upgrade your RAM

[hishnash]

16 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

All manufacturers with professional laptop ranges (who aren't Apple) have their own port replicators, which kind of negates the need for thunderbolt. Some also have expresscard slots, which allow you to directly add whatever your laptop doesn't have - in a secure hard-to-lose manner (smartcard reader, usb 3.0 ports, additional ethernet etc).

I wander how many of these are are basically PCIe devices (so just as venerable to TB3 if not more since raw PCIe has more powerfull OROM attack vectors than TB3). 

I suppose your less likely to drop your laptop onto a dock you dont own but then again how much effort do the laptop brands put into security on these, its possible that they are comprisable. 

[Letgomyleghoe]

 

On 4/25/2020 at 8:41 AM, Twilight said:

what the hell? if it's insecure they should fix it! DMA has been a thing since the 90's microsoft, fix your broken OS!

If you read the snippet, you would see that thunderbolt DIRECTLY ACCESSES THE RAM. 
It doesn’t go through the OS at all, it’s not software, it’s hardware. 

[hishnash]

17 minutes ago, scuff gang said:

If you read the snippet, you would see that thunderbolt DIRECTLY ACCESSES THE RAM. 
It doesn’t go through the OS at all, it’s not software, it’s hardware. 

When they say DMA they do not been physical copper connecting to memory, the messages still pass through the CPU memory controller however they don't interrupt the main cpu x86 unit so the OS kernel and UEFI cant filter them.

 

There are systems in place, they were built for servers with PCIe devices (like GPUs) where VMs on the server are able to run code on these PCIe devices. These commands effectively `configure` the cpus Memory controller to lookup (and cache) a table of regions of system memory that a given PCIe device can access directly.

Namely intel have a system called VT-d and AMD have something called AMD-VI

what this does is create a table of permitted parts of system memory that a given PCIe device is permitted to read/write to directly.

You can setup these in your normal OS, and MS do this, however that is to late since PCIe devices start up before the OS boots infact PCIe devices start before your system memory is started so in a normal system you cant init VT-d before a PCIe device can take controle. (once a device accesses system memory without a VT-d block in place it owns the system, since it can overwrite you UEFI firmware).

Apple solved this problem by starting the t2 chip before the x86 cpu and letting the UEFI init the VT-d (using memory on the T2 chip) before PCIe power is provided and before system memory is initiated. However this costs a lot to product a co-processor like the T2, apple are re-using `bad` iPad cpus that have 1 or more defective cors so can absorb the cost. If MS were to do this it would increase the device price by a LOT, considering the R&D work needed.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, hishnash said:

The issue is not the vertical size but the amount of space used within the laptop the 16"

If a 14" can do it a 16" can, same with the MacBook Pro 13". The issue is Apple wants those sleek consistent lines along the side which you couldn't do at that thickness so it would ruin the look they are after, which is why I say they are taking design over function and that balance is getting to be quite unbalanced.

 

 

There's a lot of lower half that could be utilized differently, slide it down and take the 10% battery capacity hit for example and if that allows for an HDMI port then yea that sounds like a great tradeoff. You might also gain some space for more cooling at the same time. Thermal management as you can see is a huge space usage.

 

Really does come down to Apple just not wanting to put those ports on the laptops anymore, if they wanted to they could. Same goes for HP's non business line of laptops, or the other brands for that matter. Currently the only place you can get all these ports as standard are on business laptops and not the ultra thin models, everything else Ethernet is basically gone and video ports are going away in favor of dongles. Just all round eh, not all round better. A lot of the last generation design laptops that brought the thickness down to me looks really nice and being able to provide a lot of the standard ports as before. As of yet we are still too reliant on plugging things in to our devices to actually be a good idea to so readily remove connectivity.

[hishnash]

Just now, leadeater said:

There's a lot of lower half that could be utilized differently, slide it down and take the 10% battery capacity hit

For most users a 10% battery hit is not worth it, you might have better traction if you reduce the quality of the speakers (and the space they use up), All the space on the right and left from the TB3 ports down (apart from the air in-takes) is for the speakers. 
 

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Thermal management as you can see is a huge space usage.

Replacing a battery (or speaker) with the HDMI port does not open up more space for airflow in the case.

 

The space used up by a HDMI port will not improve thermals (a HDMI port is not a heatsink) at all, in-fact it have more of an impact on thermals, a HDMI port needs a VRM and other power management systems (that all produce heat). When you use an external TB3 dongle that heat is dissipated by the dongle and the existing thermal solution inside the laptop to cool the TB3 controller. Sure if you replace a 2 TB3 port with a HDMI port that does reduce thermal load (since the TB3 controller does use a lot of power... classic intel chip).

[leadeater]

31 minutes ago, hishnash said:

For most users a 10% battery hit is not worth it, you might have better traction if you reduce the quality of the speakers (and the space they use up), All the space on the right and left from the TB3 ports down (apart from the air in-takes) is for the speakers. 

10% capacity really isn't a lot and that also doesn't have to translate across to 10% less run time either, we're getting pretty good at battery management now days which is nice. Edit: Plus on the 16" model it's 0.2Wh away from being illegal to take on a plane.

 

31 minutes ago, hishnash said:

Replacing a battery (or speaker) with the HDMI port does not open up more space for airflow in the case.

Not replacing, make smaller, if you elongate the main board you will have more room for thermal management. These are polymer batteries and they can actually make them to what ever size they want.

 

31 minutes ago, hishnash said:

The space used up by a HDMI port will not improve thermals (a HDMI port is not a heatsink) at all,

I think you very much missed the point here. If you make the changes I said to allow for an HDMI port you gain more usable area in the main board section which can be used to enlarge the cooling solution.

[RedRound2]

8 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

@RedRound2
Here are some Toshiba examples, old and relatively new. The connector BTW is based on PCIe with all of them.
What my Tecra had:

A newer version from 2013 for newer laptops:

All manufacturers with professional laptop ranges (who aren't Apple) have their own port replicators, which kind of negates the need for thunderbolt. Some also have expresscard slots, which allow you to directly add whatever your laptop doesn't have - in a secure hard-to-lose manner (smartcard reader, usb 3.0 ports, additional ethernet etc).

Again, this is proprietry. Why would someone buy this wehn they can buy a thunderbolt dock and use it with any laptops, despite vendors or OS. We never used to have standard PCIe based connector before, now we do. At this point, you and leadeater (for some reason) is just defending proprietry attachment style devices over a much more open and definitely more ubiquitous thunderbolt

[RedRound2]

14 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Ok, let me try it with your own words then:

 

Thunderbolts usefulness is stupidly overrated. You need half a dozen external devices to notice a difference vs USB3 and you would also need a main device that is capable of nothing but thunderbolt to begin with.

So is having an option -- turning the exisiting Type C to thunderbolt spec a bad thing? In cases where i need to connect more than 3 USB devices on a device like the surface, TB3 will allow me to connect a dock. Plus gigabit ethernet, or even 10Gbe, whenever that's available in future. And eGPU. Again wtf are you arguing against?

14 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Look: There are people that want it and those can buy devices with it. There are people that don't need it, and they have devices that don't cost extra for the licensing and don't have the potential security issue. I just don't understand why you insist on this feature to be present everywhere, even tho most people don't even need it AND it has obvious drawbacks as well.

Okay listen, You're already paying more than agrand for the laptop. Pretty much most windows laptops at that price range have thunderbolt in, inlcuding dell, HP, MSI, lenovo, everyone. And you're justifying a two grand surface for not having it due to licesing costs?? The $999 -> $799 MacBook Air (after student discount) from Apple of all companies has two thunderbolt ports.

14 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

If we would be talking about a feature that would NOT increase prices and would NOT have a security issue, then sure, everything should have it. No amount of arguing will make TB such a feature tho. It is amazing, no doubt! But it comes with drawbacks. Why would anyone take drawbacks, if the gain is not something they need or even want? What's so hard about understanding this? 

And what drawbacks? Security issue was a dumb one at best. Both macOS and Windows 1803 have had the software mitigations for those kind of attacks. Plus again, you need full and unlocked access to your laptop. There are far easier ways to hack into a device than over thunderbolt. In most windows computers, you can pretty much rip off the SSD or SATA rive to extract data. That's how flimsy this whole argument is

14 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

Nothing that comes with drawbacks should be demanded on every device. That's just silly. There will always be people not willing to take the drawback, just as there are always people not willing to not have feature X. So,... just have devices for both groups and be done with it.

There's no drawback. It just manufacturerd by microsoft to justify getting away with pathetic cost cutting measures for their extremely overpriced laptops. I'll give you better a reason why the didnt implement it - it's because they chose to go with AMD on their 15 inch and ARM on the Pro X, both of which as of today cant use thunderbolt when they couldnt made. As to why microsoft chose two clearly inferior option at the time, is again a desperate cost cutting measure.

12 hours ago, leadeater said:

If you want to extol how good Thunderbolt is then you actually have to show how it is better than existing or past options. We have HP laptops were I work so I'll talk about HP laptops, did you also know Lenovo and Dell also have the exact same style of business laptop docks?

And how long are you going to keep beating a dead horse. I have an HP laptop, yet i dont see any place to connect that huge ass thing? How tf are you able to keep going on how prpietry options are better than a universally accepted standard. It's as stupi as saying "oh well, all phones circa 2000s had different charger standards, and i dont see how universal type c is any better". That's the exact argument you're making here.

12 hours ago, leadeater said:

Almost all of these ports can be provided on the laptop and also have it thin, that was the point. Docking stations are an additional thing. What's stupid is arguing how much better thunderbolt is without actually showing how it is better than providing the ports in the first place and not noticing that most of the ports being removed from devices in the name of thinness are perfectly capable of being provided, example already provided. There is actually no reason a Macbook Pro cannot be thin and still have a Ethernet  and/or HDMI port, these don't have to be exclusive and not having the port and needing to use a dongle is worse, it just is.

No, you really dont know how PCB designs work then. Most thin laptops have a very small motherboard and is cramped with batteries in it. You can't put a full selection of IO in it and if we didnt have thunerbolt, we would just have USB port and display - and in most cases people would be fine with it because USB is the most commonly used - like how its on the surface.

 

Having a thunderbolt in place would give you the versatility to adapt it into anything!! And thick laptops can also have that because thunderbolt brings its own benefits like eGPU and expanded IO. And no stupid, clunky, expensive, proprietry docks that's available only in some weird enterprise markets with outdated connectors like VGA and DVI is not the solution

12 hours ago, leadeater said:

I won't support creating the problem so a solution can be turned around and supplied back. Very few laptops are keeping the ports I use, and this dongle stuff keeps getting touted as a good solution, don't create the problem in the first place would be nice.

Dude, get in your head that everyone doesnt have the same requirements as you. Most people are happy with two or three port laptops with the option to expand when and if needed oer thunderbolt. If you want ports, get the modern MSI or lenovo laptops that have other ports too. Stop complaining!

12 hours ago, leadeater said:

Where did I say I did not want a Thunderbolt port? I don't want in place of.

Sure, that what all this was about. You were arguing to bring back clunky proprietry docks because yu cant admit how flimsy your argument is. And again stop acting as if you cant get a thunderbolt port without other ports. Dont get macbooks, dont get XPS 2 in 1 -- and least of all dont get surface becasue it has no ports, nor even a thunderbolt stripping you away of any chance of ever hoping to connect anything to it, making it an overpriced garbage.

[mr moose]

If a laptop doesn't have 2+ USB ports, a USB C and an HDMI then it's worthless to me and I won't buy it. There's just no reason not to provide adequate i/o on aprtable device. even my cheap arse LeNOvo with the PHAT Celeron and preinstalled superfish has HDMI, 3 USB and usb C.      Who ever trumpets for having to carry around a fucking dongly so you can plug into a projector or swap Files of a USB drive is just mad. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jagdtigger]

On 4/26/2020 at 5:26 AM, justpoet said:

The difference is the technical details.  In this case, there are proper ways to do it securely.  MS just doesn't want to because of cost benefit.  It is absolutely the correct decision to not include it unless you're also going to do the additional silicon and UEFI development work that Apple does.

 

Other PC laptops on the other hand…well…mind if I "charge" my "phone battery" off your laptop?

They dont even need that, just use a chip that by default cuts the connection. Then when you need it you can enable it via software and gets disabled again if you pull out the device.

[Arika]

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

How tf are you able to keep going on how prpietry options are better than a universally accepted standard.

you mean like USB-A and USB-c? that is on the Pro 7, Laptop 3, the Surface Book 2 is only lacking a USB-A

 

2 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

No, you really dont know how PCB designs work then. Most thin laptops have a very small motherboard and is cramped with batteries in it. You can't put a full selection of IO in it and if we didnt have thunerbolt, we would just have USB port and display - and in most cases people would be fine with it because USB is the most commonly used - like how its on the surface.

 

Having a thunderbolt in place would give you the versatility to adapt it into anything!! And thick laptops can also have that because thunderbolt brings its own benefits like eGPU and expanded IO. And no stupid, clunky, expensive, proprietry docks that's available only in some weird enterprise markets with outdated connectors like VGA and DVI is not the solution

I went to one of the more popular PC stores in Australia, USB-C docks and found some of the more popular docks

 

Average cost $250AUD for these docks

 

Dell universal D6000

 

• 4x USB3.0 ports (2x front, 2x rear),
• 1x USB Type-C port (front),
• 1x speaker output (rear),
• 1x combo audio (front),
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet,
• 2x DisplayPort,
• 1x HDMI

Shintaro Blaze USB-c Dock

• 1x HDMI,
• 1x Displayport,
• 1x USB-C, Supports USB-C PD up to 60W,
• 3x USB 3.0,
• 1x RJ45 GbE,
• 1x 3.5mm AUX,
• 1x DC power jack (Host 1 x USB-C 3.0),

j5create JCD543 USB-C Triple Display Docking Station

• 2x HDMI
• 1x DisplayPort
• 1x VGA (Supports 3x Display Max)
• 1x RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet Pot Card
• 1x SD 3.0
• 1x MicroSD 3.0 Slot - Combo Audio Jack
• 3x USB 3.1
• 1x USB type-c with power delivery up to 100W

Lenovo ThinkPad USB-C Dock Gen 2 

 

• 1x USB-C,
• 3x USB 3.1,
• 2x USB 2.0,
• 1x 3.5mm Audio/Mic Jack,
• 1x HDMI, 2x DisplayPort,
• 1x RJ-45 GbE

And for shits and giggles i also went to the most popular Thunderbolt docks. SO let's see how they stack up

 

Average cost $500AUD for these docks

 

Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock Gen 2

• 2x HDMI,
• 2x DisplayPort,
• 5x USB 3.1,
• 2x USB 3.1 Type C (1x support for PD up to 65w)
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet Port,
• 1x 3.5mm Combination Audio Jack

Startech Thunderbolt 3 Dock

• 1x RJ-45 GbE
• 1x VGA
• 2x DisplayPort
• 1x HDMI
• 2x USB-A 3.1 gen 1
• 1x 3.5mm Audio/Mic Jack

Elgato Thunderbolt 3 Dock

• 2x Thunderbolt 3 (USB Type-C) Ports Support for PD up to 85W,
• 1x DisplayPort,
• 1x RJ45, 3x USB 3.0
•  2x 3.5mm Input/Output,

ATEN UH7230 Thunderbolt 3 Multiport Dock

• 1 x Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C),
• 2 x USB3.1 Gen1 Type-A,
• 1 x USB3.1 Gen1 Type-C (data only),
• 1 x Gigabit Ethernet,
• 1 x 3.5mm Stereo Input,
• 1 x 3.5mm Stereo Output,
• 1x DisplayPort 

Now i don't know about you, but the USB-c Docks look like they do pretty much everything a thunderbolt dock does. the few additional ports SOME of the TB3 docks have do NOT justify and additional $250AUD, with some of the thunderbolt docks having LESS options.

 

So far the only thing that a USB-C dock cannot accomplish is an eGPU.

 

SO i'm going to change something you said; Dude, get in your head that everyone doesn't have the same requirements as you. Most people are happy with two or three port laptops with the option to expand when and if needed over USB-C which the surface line have.

 

In fact i would say that even if you HAD a thunderbolt port, it's better value for money to get a USB-C dock.

 

And just because, the ThinkPad USB 3.0 Pro Dock (which is Type-A) that i use for work, does;

• 3x USB 3.0 – 1 provides always-on mobile device charging
• 2x USB 2.0
• 1x DVI
• 1x DisplayPort
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet port
• 1x Combination audio Port

[Dylanc1500]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

If a laptop doesn't have 2+ USB ports, a USB C and an HDMI then it's worthless to me and I won't buy it. There's just no reason not to provide adequate i/o on aprtable device. even my cheap arse LeNOvo with the PHAT Celeron and preinstalled superfish has HDMI, 3 USB and usb C.      Who ever trumpets for having to carry around a fucking dongly so you can plug into a projector or swap Files of a USB drive is just mad. 

Just go the route of (not so old) HP and have a ZBook 15 G2 with 1x USB 2.0, 3x USB 3.0, thunderbolt 2, express card, smart card, SD card, VGA, DisplayPort, Ethernet, finger print sensor, and even a Blu-ray drive. My wife uses my old one (by her choice) because of all the connection options that she regularly uses with work. Plus it gives her a 100Wh battery and the 100Wh travel battery. She never runs out of battery...
 

Don't even get me started on the dock.

 

I mean it even has a physical tube lock and an extra drive bay.

 

Sadly, I don't think that will ever come back though.

[Dabombinable]

9 minutes ago, Dylanc1500 said:

Just go the route of (not so old) HP and have a ZBook 15 G2 with 1x USB 2.0, 3x USB 3.0, thunderbolt 2, express card, smart card, SD card, VGA, DisplayPort, Ethernet, finger print sensor, and even a Blu-ray drive. My wife uses my old one (by her choice) because of all the connection options that she regularly uses with work. Plus it gives her a 100Wh battery and the 100Wh travel battery. She never runs out of battery...
 

Don't even get me started on the dock.

 

I mean it even has a physical tube lock and an extra drive bay.

 

Sadly, I don't think that will ever come back though.

That...puts the 2760p's port replicator to shame.

[Arika]

6 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

That...puts the 2760p's port replicator to shame.

at first i thought "why is it so long?" until i saw what the 2760p was, then it all made sense, sure were simpler times. gives me nostalgia feels for my Portege M780.

 

Kind of wish that style of Tablet PC came back

[Dabombinable]

19 minutes ago, Arika S said:

at first i thought "why is it so long?" until i saw what the 2760p was, then it all made sense, sure were simpler times. gives me nostalgia feels for my Portege M780.

 

Kind of wish that style of Tablet PC came back

It's only a 12" laptop. TBH it's not too bad that the style went out (at least with HP). They went from all metal with the Touchsmart TM2 to pretty much all plastic (with a rubberised primary and secondary battery - the coating melted).

[LAwLz]

My 2 cents on the whole Thunderbolt dock discussion (which I have only skimmed through some posts about).

 

Proprietary docking connectors need to die. They definitely served their place like 10 years ago when we didn't have a standard that could do a bunch of different stuff over a single cable. But today we do have that standard, and that standard is USB type C.

Yes, Thunderbolt is the technically superior standard since it supports higher speeds (hence why USB 4 will basically be rebranded Thunderbolt), but do you actually need all that bandwidth for docks? Probably not.

What do most people connect to their docks? They connect a mouse, keyboard, maybe some speakers, two monitors, maybe three at most, and then some other misc and low bandwidth peripherals like a mic.

 

Most people do not need to run 10Gbps Ethernet in their docking station. Most people do not need to drive better monitors than whatever limit USB-C DisplayPort alternative mode has (4K at 60Hz I think). Most people do not connect external USB storage to their docking station and require multiple gigabits of bandwidth to it.

When I say "most people", I mean 99.9% of people. For the remaining 0.1% of people, a high end Thunderbolt dock might be the solution. But that's a very niche market and laptop makers aren't really losing out on not including it in their products. I think most people would be happy to save some money and go with USB-C over Thunderbolt for their docking stations.

 

 

As for ports on laptops and ports. I picked my 840 G6 specifically because it had a ton of ports (relatively speaking). I could have picked a Macbook Pro, the smaller 830 G6, or the EliteBook 1040 if I wanted. But I didn't because all of those would have required me to carry around a bunch of adapters. I do not want that. I like having everything built into my computer that I will use on a regular or semi-regular basis. And even though my laptop has far more ports than let's say the Surface or the Macbook, I still run out of ports sometimes. Using a Macbook or Surface would drive me insane.

[hishnash]

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Most people do not need to run 10Gbps Ethernet in their docking station. Most people do not need to drive better monitors than whatever limit USB-C DisplayPort alternative mode has (4K at 60Hz I think). Most people do not connect external USB storage to their docking station and require multiple gigabits of bandwidth to it.

This is true however i think you might find more than 0.1% of laptop users will use at least 2 of these, Maybe a screen with a USB device attached, or a dock in an office (most offices these days use laptops) where they have 1 or 2 screens attached and a network port. My experience with USB-C docs is as soon as you connect a 4k display (or 2 smaller ones) the network and or USB stops working. They have a lot of ports but you can only use 1 or maybe 2 of them at once...

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Sure, that what all this was about. You were arguing to bring back clunky proprietry docks because yu cant admit how flimsy your argument is.

Sorry but what???? I was arguing removing HDMI, DP and Ethernet ports to give what actually is a clunky replacement, dongles, is worse and unnecessary. You brought up TB docks, I brought up already existing docks that are designed for the purpose and have been used for decades.

 

I have to say your argument is more flimsy. I have actually shown you a laptop with all these ports and is thin and looks nice. Tell me how a dongle is better than actually having the port on the device?

 

4 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

No, you really dont know how PCB designs work then. Most thin laptops have a very small motherboard and is cramped with batteries in it. You can't put a full selection of IO in it and if we didnt have thunerbolt, we would just have USB port and display - and in most cases people would be fine with it because USB is the most commonly used - like how its on the surface.

So the HP EliteBook laptops I showed you don't exist and it's all just an elaborate illusion? Show me how this is impossible.

 

4 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

proprietry docks that's available only in some weird enterprise markets with outdated connectors like VGA and DVI is not the solution

Enterprise market is huge and certainly is not weird, weird to you because you're not in it maybe. VGA is still a big thing for use because a lot of meeting rooms have VGA only projectors so this is a requirement, not that the dock itself needs it as who brings a dock to a meeting room?

 

 

Thing is there isn't actually a reason not to have a VGA port on this, sometimes a situation comes up where VGA is helpful and you might as well have it than not on something like this. Rest of the ports are no different to a TB dock so it's not exactly 'outdated' other than it not using a port you like to advocate. Real talk, it literally makes zero difference what the connector is so long as it does the job. If I have a HP laptop, will only ever be supplied HP laptops why would I not buy this style of dock that works with what I will be supplied? And when I say I buy I mean my work buys me.

[leadeater]

30 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Proprietary docking connectors need to die. They definitely served their place like 10 years ago when we didn't have a standard that could do a bunch of different stuff over a single cable.

There's actually nothing stopping them keeping the form factor of the dock and changing the connector to USB or TB, then you can just offer a portable style dock and a more permanent placement workstation replacement style. I doubt the current ones will live much longer, from what I can tell only HP have actually modern ones with all modern ports on it. Everyone else is just keeping legacy support and only offer USB/TB docks. I still prefer the traditional dock just from the quick placement and slide connector, connection port used I really don't care what it actually is.

[Tech Enthusiast]

To make use of TB, the connected devices also need TB licensing.

This usually doubles the price, 50% if you are lucky.

 

I just don't get why everyone should pay all the extra money, for something very few people actually use.

It's not like a common laptop with TB would have the raw power to even saturate all that stuff at once. Let alone finding a use case that does indeed saturate enough stuff at once to bottleneck USB3.

 

We are really talking constructed use cases here to make TB sound useful.

Again: It is an amazing thing to have and does work amazingly well for what it is. Just like a 2000 horse power car is amazing for what it is, yet very few people would actually see the benefit, while everyone will see the added fuel cost.

 

If and once TB comes without drawbacks and extra cost, I will be the first to happily use it or even search for it on my devices. Until then, I am fine with "only" using the 1000 horse power car for my groceries shopping. That saved fuel will get my cats a few extra snacks!

[jagdtigger]

30 minutes ago, leadeater said:

other than it not using a port you like to advocate

The main issue with proprietary is that it is a lock in, and ppl dont like it. Its not funny that you have to buy a new dock just because you ditched xy company for yx.....

[Arika]

4 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

The main issue with proprietary is that it is a lock in, and ppl dont like it. Its not funny that you have to buy a new dock just because you ditched xy company for yx.....

My understanding is that those kinds of docks are for large companies that have a partnership with said manufacturer so any new units are still going to be from that manufacturer. i don't think they are really marketed to individuals, so it's less likely to be a problem since the users don't get a choice in what computer their company allocates them

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

The main issue with proprietary is that it is a lock in, and ppl dont like it. Its not funny that you have to buy a new dock just because you ditched xy company for yx.....

True, honestly docks really were just a business thing and it's only recently that they have come to the consumer market, due to all the ports being removed. For the business sector it doesn't really matter, even if you switch from HP to Dell for example and have to throw them all out that change doesn't happen often and also, at least for us, the dock is replaced with the laptop every time so money is already being wasted lol.

 

TB or USB docks for consumer market make more sense, but to me not having to need to use them makes even more sense. Ultra portable or convertible laptops have their place but what I dislike that is happening is the removal of ports in the consumer product lines that don't really seem necessary to do so, Ethernet for example. Surface laptops or ones like it really do their job nicely and people know what they are getting in to when buying them, choice is always nice.

[jagdtigger]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

what I dislike that is happening is the removal of ports in the consumer product lines that don't really seem necessary to do so

The ill effects of capitalism. Its not profitable to make stuff that lasts.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

There's actually nothing stopping them keeping the form factor of the dock and changing the connector to USB or TB, then you can just offer a portable style dock and a more permanent placement workstation replacement style. I doubt the current ones will live much longer, from what I can tell only HP have actually modern ones with all modern ports on it. Everyone else is just keeping legacy support and only offer USB/TB docks. I still prefer the traditional dock just from the quick placement and slide connector, connection port used I really don't care what it actually is.

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

The main issue with proprietary is that it is a lock in, and ppl dont like it. Its not funny that you have to buy a new dock just because you ditched xy company for yx.....

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

My understanding is that those kinds of docks are for large companies that have a partnership with said manufacturer so any new units are still going to be from that manufacturer. i don't think they are really marketed to individuals, so it's less likely to be a problem since the users don't get a choice in what computer their company allocates them

I hope the proprietary connectors die.

I mean, it's true that it's mostly companies using them and they tend to stick with one supplier of laptops, but I think part of the reason why companies stick with one laptop brand is because they are a bit locked into using their equipment.

Companies that use Lenovo laptops don't want to replace a ton of expensive Lenovo docks for example.

 

Once the investment in docks is made, companies want to keep reusing that. If the dock costs 300 dollars then that means a 700 dollar HP laptop with a 300 dollar dock becomes the same price as a 1000 dollar Lenovo laptop. So if a 900 dollar Lenovo laptop is as good as a 700 dollar HP laptop, the company with a bunch of Lenovo docks will still save money by going with Lenovo. And that's bad. It's bad for competition (it's a type of vendor lock-in), it's bad for the environment (more electronic waste if they change) and it's bad for users (less choice).

I think companies would be more willing to change supplier if all their peripherals worked with other brands.

 

And not all companies do have one brand of laptops. For example where I work we can choose pretty much whichever laptop we want. Some have Surfaces. Some have Macbooks. Some have HP laptops, and so on. I as a consultant also visit several clients so my HP laptop might work at some clients' docking stations, but if I go to a client with only Lenovo docks I am screwed (or have to borrow a laptop, which is usually what the bigger clients wants anyway).

 

 

Anyway, I hate proprietary docking connectors. I am so glad we are moving towards USB-C being used everywhere. It makes my life much easier, and I think it will help with competition.