[zlsa]

I completely agree - having four Thunderbolt ports was amazing, and I'm sad that one of them has become a dedicated HDMI port. I like the SD card slot, though, but even then I'd rather have four Thunderbolt ports than three Thunderbolt, HDMI, and an SD card slot.

[lxgr]

Absolutely. The HDMI port on the 2021 models doesn’t even support 4K60 at 10 bit (HDR); the USB-C/TB/DisplayPort ports can supply much more.

They could have fit two in the space of the HDMI port!

At least on the 2023 models the native HDMI port can do something that’s not possible using adapters yet (i.e. output HDMI VRR, which is somewhat important if Apple really wants to make gaming on macOS a thing).