The shedding of various other ports in favor of ThunderBolt 3 ubiquity will no doubt be one of the biggest pain points for many when it comes to upgrading to the new MacBooks. Though the new ports do have benefits. Take the fact that the 15-inch version is capable of powering up to four 4K displays simultaneously. It’s overkill, likely for 99.9-percent of us, but hey, it’s nice to know the feature’s there if you need it.
The company was happy to show off that functionality on stage yesterday, but interestingly enough, the company enlisted another hardware maker to help out, rather than going it alone. Apple says it’s been working closely with LG to create a pair of monitors designed with the new MacBooks in mind.
LG’s 27-inch UltraFine 5K (5120 x 2880) and 21.5-inch UltraFine 4K (4096 x 2304) displays will be stepping to fill in the void left by Apple’s proprietary Thunderbolt screens. Present, naturally, is the ability to charge the laptop through the same cord delivering audio, video and the like. There’s a FaceTime reader camera/mic setup and, perhaps most compelling, a trio of USB-C ports built in for desktop docking.
The models, which Apple is more or less positioning as the official displays for the new MacBooks, run $1,300 and $700, respectively. They’ll ship in the November/December timeframe.
