Will the MBA ever get more ports?

[yoak]

I have a 14" MBP M1 16GB that I'm very happy with, but after traveling a lot this autumn I started to think bak to my MBA 11" days. I loved the size for travel. I cary a lot of camera gear in my hand luggage when flying, and often stay in hotel rooms with small desks (Europe, not US size here) A small laptop is great in that sense. I don't do any heavy editing on location, but I need to do a lot of backups of memory cards (hundreds of GBs). I use backup software to backup (and sum check) to 2 different hard drives simultaneously. It would be a pain to only be able to back up to one at the time, and that's the main reason for traveling with a MBP.
So I´m dreaming of a MBA with 3 USB-C ports, but I don´t think I will see one in the near future. Is it even possible with the hardware inside?

 

[MikeDr206]

I’m ok with two but for the love of god move one to the other side!

 

[shadowboi]

Lack of SD card slot is just plain stupid. I would hope they add more ports since USB C is tiny port. I understand they now think of MacBook Air as a device for “cheapskates” but this is wrong. I bought M1 specifically for traveling anywhere and being able to do stuff, either I am on the beach, in the forrest or in some place where there is a possibility to catch dust inside Macbook.

With that in mind I don’t think they will ever give us ports and slots back since their sales department doesn’t see professionals using this Macbook series, its all in their PR strategy. And next year they will probably extend it to iPhones as well and remove 2 cameras.

UPD: I do own lots of USB-C dongles! And I am always lazy to search and use them. It is like with photography: sometimes you really wanna play with ND filters and put your cam on a tripod but you are too lazy to do that. As well as whole construction looks extra complicated.

On the one hand I do want more ports but on the other I have lots of USB C drives and almost never use my Mac ob charger, so there was no situation when I was out of ports

 

[Howard2k]

Buy a Pro or a small port replicator.

 

[DeepSix]

You don't need more ports. Use a USB hub. Take out the MagSafe port and put a VGA port there instead.

 

[yoak]

Will I take a big hit speed wise using a USB-C hub? I usually have 2 T7 disks and a CFExpress card reader attached
I would love to get an internal SD card reader, but that is not so important.

 

[yoak]

Buy a Pro or a small port replicator.

I have a Pro already

 

[jdb8167]

I have a 14" MBP M1 16GB that I'm very happy with, but after traveling a lot this autumn I started to think bak to my MBA 11" days. I loved the size for travel. I cary a lot of camera gear in my hand luggage when flying, and often stay in hotel rooms with small desks (Europe, not US size here) A small laptop is great in that sense. I don't do any heavy editing on location, but I need to do a lot of backups of memory cards (hundreds of GBs). I use backup software to backup (and sum check) to 2 different hard drives simultaneously. It would be a pain to only be able to back up to one at the time, and that's the main reason for traveling with a MBP.
So I´m dreaming of a MBA with 3 USB-C ports, but I don´t think I will see one in the near future. Is it even possible with the hardware inside?

It’s a distinct possibility that the next generation MBAir will get a third Thunderbolt port. Certainly space isn’t an issue for at least the 15” model. The M4 supports it.

 

[ctjack]

So the question here is just money and utility.

When i grabbed my mbp14, I thought it was stupid to pay up 240 bucks on top of air to get more ports.

Lately you can get thunderbolt 4 active and passive hubs under 100 and 180. I would grab those and you willing get more ports than mbp. Obviously more dongles to hold and buy for $.