The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
The HDMI signal includes digial video and audio. There is no dedicated digital out, but you can get converter boxes to separate HDMI video and audio. The other (possibly cheaper) option is to get a moderately nice USB soundcard. To be fair, I don't think I have EVER seen a laptop with a dedicated optical audio port standard, and certainly not a 14" laptop.
Old HP, Alienware m15x and almost all Apple notebooks have mini optical S/PDIF output. That's a very important feature especially more and more people are using computer as dedicate source for music and media. It's really really annoying to see that you don't have much of choice now. Only Macbook? That sucks! USB is not in the same league with S/PDIF sound quality wise and not many USB DAC passthru Dolby Digital or DTS.
You can get an optical-3.5mm adaptor for about 3 bucks off amazon. I don't think it'll be as good as a dedicated optical port..obviously, but it shouldn't be too far off either.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
