New MacBook Pro, the great dongling and Windows notebooks: TCBC 8 with Stefan Etienne

Hardware reporter and reviewer Stefan Etienne joins me this week to share first-person impressions of the new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, and we discuss ports — or the lack thereof. Is a dongle-filled future really going to impact the ability of professionals to get work done with the latest MBP? Stefan has some thoughts on the issue.

We also survey the field of recent Windows notebook competitors, including the HP Spectre, the Razer Blade line (and their incredibly dumb tweet, which they still haven’t properly apologized for — you know you screwed up an apology when it includes the words “to those who were offended”), Acer’s Swift 7 and a few other PCs which aren’t so eager to go all-in on Thunderbolt 3. Ultimately, each has its own failings, however, which bodes well for Apple’s chances to retain its loyal Pro fans, port options or no.

Finally, we briefly discuss the LG V20, a new flagship from a phone maker that isn’t Apple, Google or Samsung, who seem to take up all the air in the room when it comes to the smartphone market these days.

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