I’ve seen laptops that use a “folded up” ethernet jack, when needed the lower portion is folded down to accept a normal sized rj45
Edit: 
32 Likes
I have very little experience with this, so I have no idea how viable it is, but how about a SIM card slot? Allowing for 4G maybe even 5G connections.
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The audio interface would also be a great addition if you ask me! My guess would be that you will go with jack i/o ? If so please make a difference by making them as sturdy and robust as you possibly can! Too bad MIDI connectors are to big to fit in the modules …
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A cellular Expansion Card is definitely an interesting one.
Based on the card dimensions, it will need to be a 3.5mm jack for audio, but we would certainly make it robust!
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Sim card expansion would be great. Would greatly help me from draining my Phone battery while using as a WiFi-hotspot.
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+1 for the cellular expansion card for me
Other ideas that could interesting IMO:
- A PCIe / mSATA slot as suggested above. Even if it sticks out a bit if needed?
- Maybe a bit too specific but one thing that sounds possible with this and I would like is a simple USB-A port going slightly inside the laptop, so we could leave all kind of small dongles like logitech unifying on without them raising out of the laptop, or even an “internal” USB port with a closable plastic lid so the receiver is hidden inside and the laptop appears flat and port-less.
- And finally, a video INPUT card (HDMI and/or USB-C) where we could plug some video emitting device like a digital camera, a console, etc… for streaming or just to use the screen as a display, like this kind of thing.
Of course these may be too low volume to implement but if the system is open enough maybe third-party could do them?
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As mentioned before, USB-A port that will be going slightly deeper, to hide wireless dongles would be very nice idea. This will prevent from breaking USB port when carrying a laptop. Also separate microphone and speaker audio jacks on one card might be interesting expansion card. But anyways, ethernet jack is the most important card IMO.
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It would be interesting to see a fingerprint sensor that can be used to authenticate with the OS. So rather than having a lump sticking out of a USB port, it can be flush.
Ideally supporting Windows Hello and FIDO/U2F so it can support multiple OS and browsers.
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We have a Windows Hello-compatible fingerprint reader built into the power button. We’ve done a little exploration on whether we can support FIDO2 as well, but nothing conclusive.
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Nice I had missed that feature. Is that supported by any of the Linux distros that are tested?
I guess the webcam doesn’t have the IR features for the facial recognition version of Windows Hello.
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The fingerprint sensor we use has a Linux driver. We’re working on making sure it works smoothly in common distros and is possible to get working in other ones.
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I’m not a technical person, but here’s another vote for the ability to add a cellular option – SIM, eSIM, etc.
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I love the audio / music production potential for these machines: Of course, a full size SD card is a must, and an expansion card with high quality audio input and output via 3.5mm TRS jacks is also core requirement, but extra marks for another expansion card to provide MIDI input and output also via TRS jacks (MIDI standard type A or type agnostic please).
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Continuing the discussion from What new Expansion Card types do you want to see released?:
A few years down the some of us may have upgraded enough parts that we could use the old parts to build a full laptop. Cases could be offered to house these and be used as hand me downs of sort for kids/printers, ect to avoid e-waste. The best part is it can then be upgraded as need till eventually a third case could be built or the parts themselves actually become obsolete. By then hopefully we’ll be able to recycle.
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A lot of businesses are still using VGA for dual monitors and such, I can see that one being very useful. It would be cool to be able to test all of a monitor’s outputs using one laptop.
One out of the box idea could be designing a larger multi-port “docking station” that connects to both expansion slots on one side similar to those side mounted dongles that everyone makes for Macbooks.
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A wifi 2.4 and 5 GHz card with monitor mode such at a rtl8812au chipset for pen testing and generally better wifi support
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Since there’s 2 cards per side, can you do a ‘double card’?
If so, how about an extra battery?
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We need a docking station! They exist already, they are connecting to USB-C, where you can attach all your peripherals, screen etc.
But a quick coupling would be nice (like Dell’s for example). These would make the devices also more interesting for businesses.
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Super into a docking station, but that’s not a card… card-wise I’d love to see a high-fidelity audio output.
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a GPU card would be awesome
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