I actually blame Johnny Ive for this clusterf*ck. Ive famously pursued a crusade for thinness. It's said that design is the art of compromise. Well, Ive took a no compromises approach to thinness and it showed.

Look no further than the 12" Macbook. One port (also needed for power), lower power CPU and (I believe?) the start of the dreaded butterfly keyboard. IIRC the butterfly keyboard's raison d'etre was to shave half a millimeter off the thickness of a Macbook. That's... it. Oh and that same crusade is probably a big part of why we lost the MagSafe adapter.

Compare the 12" Macbook to the (2010 and onwards) Macbook Air. A good compromise of thinness, power, ports and price point. For years, many (including myself) just wanted an upgrade to the Macbook Air with a retina display (and more modern ports). But we didn't, we got the "no compromises" Macbook instead.. until that was (thankfully) killed and the macbook Air came back.

And sure Ive designed the 2008 Macbook Air and he deserves credit for his design but... he clearly went off the deep end at some point after that.

The M1 Air even got rid of the stupid touch bar (thank God).

I recently had the choice between a macbook pro and a dell xps. Saw the dell xps had HDMI, USB-C _and_ USB-A and was sold. Its nice to be able to bring my laptop in to a meeting room and just be able to plug in the hdmi cable without needing an adapter. Its also really nice to be able to use all my usb c accessories but without having to go usb C only.

And its not noticeably thicker than the macbook either. I can understand the pursuit of thinness or at least weight reduction in mobile devices. If the iPad was any heavier, you wouldn't be able to use it while standing. But on a laptop there is a lot more room for weight and thickness. As log as its comfortable to carry, that's good enough.

I use to have the same thought process as you: instantly sold on devices with native hdmi, usb a & usb c. By that metric xps beats macbook.

Recently I tried to convert to a windows laptop from my 16 inch mbp. Upon switching I was constantly annoyed by the fan noise & using my pinkie to press the 'control' key opposed to macbook thumb on 'command' key.

The point is, I realized native port selection was not a metric to consider when purchasing a laptop. I am fine bringing an adapter to the meeting room.

I guess it comes down to what you value. I am just trying to play 'devil's advocate' with my anecdotal experience compared to your experience.

The thing with "windows" laptops is that you can install and run Linux seamlessly out of the box, even distros that Mimic the look of OSX, and remap the keys to your hearts content.

> even distros that Mimic the look of OSX, and remap the keys to your hearts content

Sadly, they mimic the macOS UI very poorly, and it remains not-possible in Linux to universally remap keyboard shortcuts to match macOS built-in sanity.