I have this exact setup on the Thinkpad in front of me. It is great, and it's hilarious to see my phone's lockscreen pop up on the screen when I end up charging it with that cable.

You know what else this laptop has? Two ports I don't recognize (thunderbolt and dock?) on the left, and on the right, two USB-A, ethernet, SD card reader, HDMI, and headphone jack. It's a false dichotomy to say that you can only get the one-port connection by throwing away all the other ports you might need.