lilkwarrior

*until recently.

Manufacturers were cheap, especially mainstream manufacturers who have every right to be if they felt the costs weren’t worth it. They seem to really hate license fees associated with it vs USB.

Intel IMO dropped the ball limiting the cores and lanes of desktops to the extent they did until AMD/ARM/Apple forced them to stop doing that.

Thunderbolt hasn’t been royalty free until now, and it’s now merged in USB4. It’s why this is somewhat surprising because USB4, HDMI, and maybe a CFExpress slot would have all major I/O covered. USB4 covers Displayport 2.0 as well with 16K support.

HDMI 2.1 TVs, conference projectors, and so on exist. Silicon Valley at least leverage such things and the top high-end TVs use HDMI 2.1 with current-gen consoles and ASTC 3.0 further facilitating such transition.

Even the GoPros record 4K@120hz accounting for HDMI 2.1 capable panels that leverage the standard’s full bandwidth to output 4K@120hz Dolby Vision HDR in such panels. I’ve used HDMi 2.1 panels for two years now with a variety of HDMI 2.1 devices connected to them.

Last gen (RTX) and Current gen GPUs have had HDMi 2.1 support for some time, with the latest GPUs having full support.

It’s just weird their latest HDMI devices that launched this year has HDMI 2.1 (Apple TV 4K) but the Macbook that is way more expensive and functional doesn’t. It’s even more weird when HDMI output from the Macbook will be way slower than the actual screen because of this as well.

I’m aware of the capabilities of Thunderbolt 3/4. I have Thunderbolt 4 docks connected to high-end panels like the 6K@60 Pro Display XDR and the 4K@120hz PA32UCG; I’ve used Thunderbolt for a great deal of my equipment and I/O needs for years now. It’s a shame to me a TB4 port was sacrificed for bringing back 2015 hardware that’s extremely obsolete in I/O today.

FaceID is very analogous to the Windows Hello feature that is highly well regarded. It saves an invaluable amount of time to many users today.

As far as CFExpress, I consider it something that should’ve been configurable. A great deal of modern A/V pro equipment use CFExpress being far faster and far better utilizes modern I/O. You rarely go back.

Drones, GoPro, and things like that usually have cloud storage options ironically to account for legacy Macbook Pros without a SD card slot. That said, I agree users should’ve had an option to stick with a Legacy SD card part if they are tied to too many hardware in their workflows that depend on it.

CFExpress is a pretty big reason why which is used by today’s DSLRs. It’s like they wanted to repurpose all their spare parts from the 2015 era and drag it in 2021 (maybe because of pandemic-related supply issues they had no choice? The new panel is certainly gonna push back some orders)

Note I very much prefer USB4/Thundebolt 4 for my devices. Warrantable displays that don’t need that like TVs have HDMI 2.1 moving forward to output 4K@120hz to align with the 120hz speed of the new Macbook Pro.

Even the new Apple TV 4K uses HDMI 2.1 making Apple’s omission on the Macbook Pro again a head-scratcher. It’s not very pro for the native refresh rate of a display not being feasible from one of the core connectors to output work from it

I use plenty of HDMI 2.1 devices daily, and I very much would like to connect a Macbook Pro to them–especially secondary displays and TVs that most certainly use HDMI 2.1 to better align with the capabilities of the new display (all the panels that match/surpass the new Macbook Pro not a Pro Display XDR have HDMI 2.1)

HDMI 2.0 is great for old panels prior to 4K being really established; modern projectors use HDMI 2.1 as well out of necessity to connect to eARC and so on

Many Pro/Av in 2020 and 2019 use HDMI 2.1 and most certainly will in more abundance moving forward.

I use plenty of HDMI 2.1 devices today I very much would like to connect a Macbook Pro to.

UHS-II instead of UHS-III is referring to the speed of the SD slot of the new Macbook Pros announced yesterday that’s behind with today’s pro SD standards.

The new Macbooks not having HDMI 2.1 when they have a native 120hz display is a huge head-scratcher. It breaks the principle of least surprise when you want to communicate your designs on a larger screen.

The backtrack is a bit too strong with the new Macbook Pro: HDMI 2.0 instead of HDMI 2.1, and a UHS-II instead of UHS-III in 2021?

Just seems a bit too skewed for average joes instead of pros–the exact thing pros were complaining about that led to them apologizing and quickly making up for that with them by Apple fortunately responding with a 32GB-RAM capable Macbook Pros, iMac Pro, the 2019 Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR.

It would’ve been great if this is what they did for the M1 Macbook first refresh and had CFExpress, HDMI 2.1, FaceID, and an even better camera for corporate teleconferences with Dolby Vision HDR and maybe 4K–you know, for today’s pros!

The notch without FaceID is simply bewildering backpedaling the Macbook Pro notch being less functional than the iPhone: Backpedaling to another issue they had recently that had pros up in arms. Why is the most popular Mac product behind the iPhone in the weirdest way in 2021?

It’s an odd mix of really great things with very dated pro affordances: Making many pros having to wait for M2 as they expected

That’ll change if they can get Nintendo, another family-friendly-oriented company, in the mix.

It’s a win-win for both:

- Apple hardware and supplier-chain advantage would surely fix up the hardware-limiting woes of Nintendo

- Nintendo games on the MacOS App Store would minimize Nintendo piracy concerns and be popular among an audience more than willing to part ways with their cash.

- Nintendo games could be added to Apple Arcade to make the family friendly game platform even better

- Apple shores up the lack of popular AAA games using their hardware and have very high demand by work-and-play professionals and extreme gamers alike

It’s the best chance I’ll get to play games like Metroid Prime, Bayonetta, and Link games in 4K@120hz without going extreme lengths to do so vs. the very limiting experience doing so on the Switch.

They get substantial perf improvements moving to DX12–especially if they use WDDM 2.x/3.x and DX12U features like VRS, so it’s definitely realistic.

WDDM 2.x can give modern GPUs 60%+ performance on its own; it’s why many publishers considered games being DX12 exclusive long ago, but Windows 7 was unfortunately too prevalent amidst a lot of missteps by Microsoft with Windows 10.

That’s a good thing. Pros want little compromise and they’ll easily make the money up for a laptop catered to them. PC laptops don’t get this enough, and it’s at least Apple’s big bet with the M1 Max, no compromises MiniLED tech catering to a very wide range of pros, Dolby Atmos sound, and so on.

I’m strictly referring to the secondary screen; I’m not sure there’s a better secondary screen in a laptop for creative professionals that’s better. Touch support, creative-professional-oriented stylus support, OLED, and so on.

I’d appreciate being enlightened.

Useless local dimming? You sound extremely inexperienced with the value of high-zone MiniLED displays. Having that many zones with sustained 1000nits is HUGE.

No HDMI 2.1 is lame for the HDMi port, the omission of FaceID despite the notch seems arbitrary, and the SD Card should be configurable to be a CF Express slot.

The touch bar was poor execution, but the value is there for creative professionals. They should serious consider bringing it back but make it unapologetically for creative pros that with Apple Pencil support and an ideal place for iOS apps to run.

Asus Zenbook Pro Duo is basically the blue print:

Glad the keyboard feels more like a mechanical keyboard. Hope they can make it configurable one day and do something cool and accessible like OLED switches to more easily switch up the keyboard layout.

EXACTLY. It seems such a "for the casual tech user be interested in our highest priced SKU device in addition to pros" move to add SD card slot instead of CF Express in 2021.

Like the 2019 Mac Pro, maybe one USB-A port tops for a legacy keyboard/mouse/USB-A drive

*1-3 minimal USB-A to USB-C adapters.