[shiroiushi]

I have a Dell laptop with a Thunderbolt docking station. The docking station is great for staying connected to all the things you normally leave on your desk when you take the laptop somewhere: dual monitors, keyboard, mouse, ethernet connection, webcam, speakers, etc. It's not that great for plugging in, for instance, temporary USB devices like thumb drives or USB hard drives. (This docking station has some USB ports on the back, where they're hard to get to, and only a single one on the front.)

So I'm very happy that this laptop, though still quite thin, actually has two USB-A ports (USB 3.0), on the sides. It's also nice sometimes to be able to plug in an HDMI monitor if I'm not at my desk/home, without needing to carry a stupid dongle.