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Comment by Hamuko | Hacker News Reader

I think I’d miss my USB-A ports if I switched my Mac Studio for this. Apart from that, it looks pretty good. Not really sure if it’s worth saving a couple of hundred when you spec it up to par with an M4 Max Mac Studio when that comes out though. It’s the same price as the base M2 Max Mac Studio when you upgrade the memory and SoC.

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I have lots of USB-A devices, so I get what you're saying. But converters are pretty cheap and seem reliable.

And Apple has a long history of making this change ahead of the rest of the market. It's been years since they've move to all USB-C in their laptops, so IMO, it was only a matter of time.

And yeah - upgrades are awful price wise. From what I can tell, it's basically only worth it to buy base models unless the machine is making you money. Hopefully they upgrade the Mac Studio to M4 down the line.

I actually recently discovered that my USB DAC was skipping a lot because I had it connected to a hub. Threw it directly onto the Mac Studio and now everything's peachy, so there are definitely downsides to trying to get a bunch of USB-A devices attached to one of these.

Sadly it's been common for USB hubs to be dodgy ever since the advent of USB 3. I rarely had trouble out of 1.x and 2.x hubs, but 3.x+ hubs are consistently trouble. The only ones that haven't been problematic are those integrated into Thunderbolt docks, probably because those undergo more stringent certifications.

Are the ones in Thunderbolt docks actually USB hubs, or just USB host controllers speaking PCIe to the Thunderbolt controller?

System Profiler labels those in my CalDigit TS4 as hubs, but it's entirely possible that's not accurate.

And Apple has a long history of making this change ahead of the rest of the market.

I agree. My wife has a MacBook that is USB-C only, and it turns ten years old in a couple of months.

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