Earlier this month, Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop, sparking fresh criticism that it"s 2017 and there are still no Surface devices that exist with a USB Type-C port. The firm announced the new Surface Pro today, and that still hasn"t changed; however, it will be launching a dongle later on this year.
The dongle will plug into the Surface Connect port, and it will support charging, as well as data transfer. Naturally, it will be helpful if you have a USB Type-C charger that you want to use, or peripherals.
In an interview with The Verge, Surface head Panos Panay said, "The last thing I want is to take away the port they need today and tomorrow and the next day, to achieve a technology milestone where I then put a barrier in front of my customers." He also compared it to the micro-USB port on the Surface 3, saying that it didn"t work out when people tried to power up their Surface with their phone charger.
What Panay didn"t explain was why USB Type-C couldn"t be added as an additional port, rather than removing Surface Connect or the existing USB Type-A port. Surely, there"s room for a Type-C port in the Surface Studio.
Either way, Panos says, "When Type-C is ready for our customers, to make it easy for them, we’ll be there."
The company didn"t provide pricing or a specific timeframe of when the dongle will be made available, only saying that it"s coming later this year.