I’ll contest that on the screens. Mini-LED backlighting is a substantial step up for contrast, backlights in general have gotten brighter, IPS panels have gained notability better color gamuts and contrast, and OLED panels are now widely available even in budget machines. The screens on the M1-M4 MBPs look quite visibly nicer than those MBPs used up until 2019.
Those painfully awful 1366x768 TN panels that used to be commonplace have finally mostly been ousted, too. As a result, chances are that the laptop you buy at nearly any price bracket in 2026 has a screen that’s moderately to dramatically better than was found in laptops in the same bracket up until 2020-2022.
The problems with the port modules are that due to their dimensions, the number of ports you can have on the laptop at once is small and the big voids in the chassis required for them to be able to slot in greatly weakens it and makes it more prone to flexing.
With an alternative design that uses internal port boards (still hooked up via USB-C) with matching exterior side plates, you could easily do something like 3x USB-C, 1x USB-A on the left and 1x Ethernet, 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, 1x SD/microSD on the right in the same space as would’ve been taken by the modules for half as many ports. This would suit most users perfectly out of the box, precluding the need for swapping for many, but for those who need one side to be full USB-C or multiple NICs or a cell modem or something that’s still possible.
Point taken, I totally see how brighter screens must be a boon for people who actually bring their laptop outdoors.
My personal needs are way smaller so I missed that part completely (on contrast IDK, I recently had a Surface Pro 8 next to a MBP 4 and it didn't strike me, but I might not be sensible enough to that)
> 1366x768
We've had HDPI for a decade now, that's truly awful.
> ports
Agreed, people needing more than 4 ports or caring a lot more about size are kinda SOL with the current modular setup.
Brighter screens is a boon for anyone using a laptop, full stop. If it’s too bright, you can turn the brightness down, obviously doesn’t work this way in the opposite direction.
Besides, the point isn’t even absolute max brightness, but the contrast ratio. OLEDs aren’t the brightest displays, but their contrast ratio blows pretty much everything else out of the water and that’s what makes you go wow when looking at an oled in a dark room. (At least it does for me, still, and I’ve got an oled tv in 2018.)
To me, OLED being self-emissive is a far bigger deal than the contrast ratio. With LCDs, even the laminated ones in MacBooks, you get backlight shimmering, bleed, halos (especially with Mini-LED), and general inconsistency. With OLED, the pixels are a single, nano-thin layer, the display looks directly printed onto the surface (because it is), there are no backlight issues because there's no backlight, and there's no polarization or enclosure to create viewing angle artifacts. (Note: QD-OLED is inferior in this regard, especially with ambient light, but that doesn't bother me that much; WOLED however is trash.)
The OLED iPad Pro is one of the best screens I've ever seen, besides the awful pixel density. Even if deactivated pixels weren't fully dark, it'd still be far superior to any LCD.
OLEDs have a lot of great properties, but I’m still on the fence when it comes to building them into laptops. On phones and tablets where usage is intermittent, usually shortish, and content is constantly moving they’re well suited, but with a laptop screen that in some cases can be turn on for 12+ hours and is displaying the same static content for large chunks of that, I’d be worried about burn in.
Maybe it’s not an issue with tandem OLED and strict binning though.
Including indoors in rooms with large windows that face east, south, or west! This describes a lot of office buildings, as well as my bedroom in a circa-2005 cheaply built mass development home too. On sunny days, it’s brightly naturally lit for basically half the day, and dim displays can struggle in that environment.
Those painfully awful 1366x768 TN panels that used to be commonplace have finally mostly been ousted, too. As a result, chances are that the laptop you buy at nearly any price bracket in 2026 has a screen that’s moderately to dramatically better than was found in laptops in the same bracket up until 2020-2022.
The problems with the port modules are that due to their dimensions, the number of ports you can have on the laptop at once is small and the big voids in the chassis required for them to be able to slot in greatly weakens it and makes it more prone to flexing.
With an alternative design that uses internal port boards (still hooked up via USB-C) with matching exterior side plates, you could easily do something like 3x USB-C, 1x USB-A on the left and 1x Ethernet, 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, 1x SD/microSD on the right in the same space as would’ve been taken by the modules for half as many ports. This would suit most users perfectly out of the box, precluding the need for swapping for many, but for those who need one side to be full USB-C or multiple NICs or a cell modem or something that’s still possible.