Elite Book G6 vs HP Elite Book G7 diff's - G7 dropped UltraSlim Dock connector + the RJ45 netwk jack

[misOrion]

Flame Enable HI - Elite Book G6 vs HP Elite Book G7 differences ... I am in the middle of laptop hardware refresh started in 2020... with a few HP Elite Book G6 with Ultraslim docks to support multi - Display port desktop configurations... The Elite Book G7 killed that common configuration by dropping the Ultraslim dock connector, plus no more RJ45 network connector on the laptop...  looks like will need the  HP USB-C Dock G5 .. Starting to not trust the HP Elite book 850 G7 laptop engineering... Would like any links for the reason HP is moving away from the ultra-dock with the G7 ... & dropping the RJ45 jack on the laptops  

[soccer_dan]

Good question: The Ultraslim/side mechanical dock supported 8 generations of laptops starting with the EliteBook 9470m many years ago... In order to make laptops thinner and lighter (as customers now demand) the docking connector could no longer be supported... In addition, as the industry releases higher resolution and performance displays (4k, for example) and accessories, the side dock could not provide these needed features... The industry overall has moved to 'cable' docking and HP has to follow, thus the usb-c and thunderbolt docking solutions

As far as the built-in ethernet/nic, I can think of 2 reasons for this, one is that the new G7 generation is slimmer and smaller design, and the rj45 connector is just too big to fit, and then as majority of users move to remote, the use of wifi increased and the need to physically connect to ethernet diminished

The G7 is a smaller chassis with many improvements over the G6, and hope you can see the differences side/side

[misOrion]

Found this on the HP Store, Light, will see if this works for in the laptop bag for travel... 

V7W66UT#ABA  - https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-usb-c-to-rj45-adapter.

I purchased this also

HP USB-C Dock G5 - https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-usb-c-dock-g5

for the desktop to support 2 Displayport monitors & 1000Base-T eithernet... Seems to work so far...