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Why are VGA ports still included on new laptops and towers? It will be 2020 in less than ten weeks and computer manufacturers are still shipping laptops and towers with VGA ports. VGA was introduced in 1987 with IBM PS/2 computers. According to a joint press release on December 8, 2010 by Intel, AMD, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung and LG, the interface was expected to be phased out of PC client processors and chipsets by 2015.

NPD DisplaySearch forecasted two years later in July 2012 that VGA would phase out of "most PC products by 2017," yet it is still being included in new Dell Optiplex towers, Latitude notebooks, and Sony's Vaio SX12 and SX14 laptops to name a few examples.

I was under the impression that the industry wanted to move away from interfaces that prevent DRM content and copyright protections and push for interfaces implementing HDCP (e.g. HDMI, DVI-D, DisplayPort) in order to prevent piracy.

Sources: https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/leading-pc-companies-move-to-all-digital-display-technology-phasing-out-analog/

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2505263/vga-ports-bowing-out-of-home-computers--lingering-in-the-workplace.html

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/5/18295153/vaio-sx14-review-lots-of-ports-mean-business

https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/chasing-pixels/famous-graphics-chips-ega-to-vga

Burgi
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audiofreak39
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I would say it has phased out of “most products” (at least as a separate connector) but there are business models (like Latitude and Optiplex) that often keep them around for a long time for compatibility. There are plenty of places where the projector has VGA and that’s it. New ones of course have HDMI but not everyone upgrades immediately. And in business setting it’s much more probable than in home setting. Displays and projectors are long lived devices.

Even in homes the GPUs often have VGA capabilities, they just might not have the connector. It’s in the DVI connector ready to be used with any devices you might have. And many do have VGA monitors still.

My previous Dell laptop even has an S-video connector even though no devices using it had been seen for a while. But they exist in the business world so it was included.

Sami Kuhmonen
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