Laptop makers, I’m begging you to put USB-C ports on both sides

The Asus Zenbook A14 is a really cool, lightweight laptop with battery life for days, literally. But as much as I like it, there’s one thing about its design that drives me nuts. It’s a problem I see all too often on otherwise excellent laptops: The USB-C ports are only on one side.

This sucks. Allow me to use several hundred words to explain why.

There are a lot of great things about USB-C. Access to incredibly fast data transfers. Video capabilities on a (somewhat) universal standard. But the greatest for me, by a wide margin, is that you can use it to charge up almost any device with the same cable. I want every single device that I own with a battery to allow charging via a USB-C port.

And we’re almost there. My phone, my tablet, my laptop, my headphones, even my portable batteries that I use to charge all of them on the go, each one uses USB-C. All of this is good. But for most of the time, a phone, a tablet, headphones, et cetera only need one USB-C port. That’s all that’s practical for these devices.