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Comment by mfer | Hacker News Reader

More ports? There are 4 slots and you can put in what you want. If you want all 4 to be USB-C you can have that. Are you looking for more than 4 slots? If that's the case you'll have to wait for different processors. I think the ones they are using only support up to 4 slots.

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Personally I'd like more external ports. My current laptop have like 2 usb-c 2 usb-a, 1 HDMI, 1 Ethernet, 1 audio jack and 1sd reader, which I find pretty convenient for most situations. I think the 4 internal ports are more than enough, but sometimes just being able to plug more stuff at the same time is nice.

And I would miss Ethernet currently :)

Maybe just one card with multiple ports in it would solve that problem. I get the design decision but using one usb c port to a singular function does feel wasteful, when you can plug a dock in that has three USB 3.0 A ports, USB C passthough, ethernet, HDMI, SD card reader all into a singular USB C port (looking at my $40 laptop dock on my desk currently for how many ports they squeezed into it!)

Looking though the community mock ups seemly is considerations around display port and PD when making multiple port modules

https://community.frame.work/t/dual-usb-c-expansion-card-moc...

You could just use a USB hub if you need so many extra.

Oh nice, I didn't see options to replace the ports shown in the image with USB C. I'm supposing that's in the configuration wizard when you elect to buy?

> I'm supposing that's in the configuration wizard when you elect to buy?

You're in for a treat if you buy this. You can swap the ports around using modules. So basically if you want different ports for your laaptop, you can do that without replacing the whole computer. You can even change them throughout day as needed.

The ports are all USB C - thing built in dongles that can be swapped.

That is by far the coolest feature I've heard of to date.

In the wizard you get modules. You can hot swap modules because the are really USB-C under the hood. The laptop essentially has 4 USB-C ports and a module system to plug adapters in. You can avoid dongles this way.

I'm not entirely sure why they did 4. 4 is more than other competitor laptops in this size category have. It could have to do with what the processor can handle or the space in a form factor of this size.

Looking further at the chips, they only support up to 4 external displays. I wonder if 4 is somehow otherwise a factor down to the CPU/integrated GPU level.

It's 4 because tiger lake CPUs have 4 pcie lanes and the usb ports are thunderbolt and thus require an entire lane for full speed

No, all ports are USB-C. You can then choose which 'modules' are plugged into them, and swap them at any time.

Essentially, they are like 'dongles', but they sit flush and don't take additional space.

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