The smaller battery is disappointing. Yep, the CPU uses less power but that only counts if your MBP is more or less idle. In the end, footprint matters and not thickness … Apple abandoned too much battery capacity IMHO.
The non-TB version is nice with a lower power CPU and a higher capacity battery, BUT only has 2 ports instead of 4, which is nothing short of absurd. They really screwed up on this front IMO.
Hell yeah! I sincerely regard those 2 ports on the cheaper model simply as hardware crippling. Much like AV manufacturers punish you by giving you less audio/hdmi ports if you go for their entry models.
What's the use case for needing 3 USB? Wherever you sit normally (home or work) just get a usb hub/dock and use the single connection to the laptop for keyboard, mouse, charging, and driving a monitor.
When out and about, when do you need 3? Can't ever recall seeing someone at a coffee shop, conference, etc needing 3 USBs.
Sometimes I work at home and hook my laptop up to my keyboard, mouse, monitor, and outlet at the same time. Admittedly I don't do this very often but it's nice to be able to do this as I need to.
I think the idea is you would have a USB-C hub that has all of those ports on it, so you come to your desk to work and plug in a single plug and away you go with charging/monitor/keyboard/mouse/ethernet.
3 seems like a minimum to me. Power, mouse (yeah, bluetooth, but the only ones I like require a dongle), and phone. My current laptop has two USB ports, and it covers about 99% of my needs, but it's also frequently full.
