Yes, they can cut costs on the chip and the I/O hardware if I remember correctly. Anyways, these costs are minimal compared to the enormous overall prices of these machines. It just seems like a silly idea to cut costs in an area where even 500$ Windows laptops offer a good functionality.
(There’s actually a good technical reason as to why this is the case, to an extent, but the answer ultimately comes down to the fact Apple is being cheap)
They do it to „upsell“ you towards M3 Pro. There is no other reason why a powerful chip like M3 should not support 2, 3 or even 4 external displays.
It’s also because the base M1/2/3 chips find their way to the iPad lineup as well, where there’s already limited use for even 1 external display.
Its a hardware limitation, so you are essentially claiming that Apple, at the design phase, explicitly scoped a limitation of external displays?
Whilst this is definitely true, wouldn’t the absence of necessary I/O hardware also cut costs on the chip?
Yes, they can cut costs on the chip and the I/O hardware if I remember correctly. Anyways, these costs are minimal compared to the enormous overall prices of these machines. It just seems like a silly idea to cut costs in an area where even 500$ Windows laptops offer a good functionality.
Facts
(There’s actually a good technical reason as to why this is the case, to an extent, but the answer ultimately comes down to the fact Apple is being cheap)
What’s the technical rationale? Is it related to heat and efficiency?
The video ram would be the issue with the 8gb ram version I bet.