why do they put the ports on the sides?

When the back would be so much nicer. Or, give me a dock!

I have a dell m6400 with a nice dock. No connections whatsoever, all are behind the computer. My new M17x looks like a mad scientist creation with wires and adapters all over the place. And, as I transport it back and forth every day I need to unplug all of 8 connections from it.

 

The Cpu/Gpu heatsinks are at the back of the M17x.

 

Yep the current design does not allow for the ports to be in the back but I agree it would be more convenient.

 

You'd be surprised how annoying having ports in the back of the laptop can get. I used to have one of these:



and it had all the ports in a little titanium door on the back. Sure it looked nice, but it was massively hard to plug things in on the fly.

Stick things like VGA/HDMI ports on the back and leave the rest on the sides.

 

Ew, what is that?

But... I agree... give docking station!

 

Judging by the OS, it's an older MacBook.

 

They designed these with cooling prioritized over connections (of which there is still an ample selection)

that is why the fans all exhaust out the back and there are no ports

they tried to make that compromise on the M17 and the cooling suffered noticeably on that model

 

Hahaha, nah, it would be an older MacBook Pro but that's actually a PowerBook G4 circa 2002-2003 when they were still made out of Titanium.

 

Thanks, just venting. My M6400 is winking at me saying "come on, return that big alien thing". There are some aesthetics it has over the M17x (it was 6K after all!) and the dock slot is one of them.

 

Yeah, wondering why docking stations have gone by the wayside. This day and age a docking station for any size laptop would be convenient. Don't give me the USB crap docking station, give me a full GPU bandwidth docking station.

 

The docking station is something I miss about my old HP DV9260nr I used to have

one plug was EVERYTHING - LAN, power, usb, printer, monitor, mouse/keyboard etc

 

I actually prefer the ports on the sides. I find it much more user friendly, and GPU friendly too.

 

I will make many sacrifices for optimal cooling

 

I agree, I disliked having ports in the back.

 

I was always afraid to tilt my laptop when stuff is plugged in the back, still have that problem with the power plug on my M17x

 

I have an XPS m1710 (until my m17x arrives) which has USB ports/video connections at the back as well as USB ports on the sides and I have to say I really like this setup. It keeps the big messy cables out of the way for the most part and still gives you the convenience for ad-hoc use.

For things that are 'permanently' plugged in via USB for me, like wireless mouse receiver, laptop cooling pad - I like the ports at the back being out sight / out of the way. Conversely, I like the flexibility of having USB ports on the sides for removable drives, camera, phone etc.

 

I use my Cryo LX with the USB hub so I only plug one usb into the laptop but can have 4 connected - helps some

 

I too had a laptop with connections in the back (original XPS). I liked it 99% of the time, but that 1%...man did I hate it. First tech that came out to replace the CPU, had my mouse plugged in out back, he picked up the comp and when he set it down, the first thing to hit was the mouse plug, then the power cable. He broke the solder joints for both pieces. Luckily, he had a mainboard for my unit as the tech support guy ordered both and my original board was fine, the processor was the culprit. A dock for the M17x...drool! I wish...

I do like scook9, my desk has a built in powered hub. I plug everything into that and then just have the one cable going into my laptop.

 

I have a few USB ports on my Inspiron 1720. Both on the back and on the sides and the ones on the back never get used. Ports on the side is the wat to go IMO