Microsoft has officially announced the launch of its latest product, the Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock, shortly after it was leaked to the public.
This new dock is priced at $299.99 and will connect over USB-C instead of the proprietary Surface Connect port. Moreover, the Tech Giant says it will continue to sell its Surface Dock 2, which uses the Surface Connect port. For the first time, the new Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock will support devices other than the Surface.
With Thunderbolt 4, it offers data transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps and 96W charging, making it highly efficient. At the front, the dock has one USB-C port and one USB-A port but no SD card slot.
Meanwhile, the back of the Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock includes two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, a 2.5-gigabit ethernet port, an audio jack, and a security lock slot.
It is unclear whether the Surface Connect port will be completely phased out, but it is clear that Microsoft is moving away from it.
Recent Surface devices, such as the Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Pro 9, have both been shipped with USB-C ports that support Thunderbolt 4, alongside the Surface Connect port. It is highly probable that the next Surface device will only have USB-C.
The Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock is available now for $299.99 on Microsoft’s official website. Microsoft took a while to support USB-C and Thunderbolt 4 on its Surface devices, with USB-C only arriving on the Surface Pro 7 in 2019 and Thunderbolt support arriving with the Surface Pro 8 two years later.
According to Microsoft, security concerns were the reason for the delay.
