RIP Surface Dock: USB-C built Microsoft's sidekick irrelevant

When I was cleansing out my workplace this weekend, I recognized some thing: I really do not want my Floor Dock any extra.

Microsoft’s Area Dock (afterwards changed by the Area Dock 2) was portion and parcel of possessing a Microsoft Surface Professional tablet, Area Laptop, Area Book, or Floor Notebook Studio. It available enlargement abilities far over and above what the Floor made available.

Apart from the Floor E-book, Microsoft under no circumstances produced any serious endeavor at creating items with a multitude of enlargement ports, significantly like rival laptops on the sector. Rather, it went for a lot more of a minimalist technique.

Sound common? If it does, you likely own both a USB-C dongle or 1 of our very best Thunderbolt docks, the two merchandise categories that designed the Area Dock irrelevant. As a lot more and extra laptop makers understood that they could make thinner, much more exquisite laptops (and save dollars) by doing away with extraneous ports, all of that additional functionality was pushed onto the hub or Thunderbolt dock. All a maker required to do was to substitute all of people ports with a couple USB-C or Thunderbolt ports in its place.

Microsoft

For years, nevertheless, the Surface area Dock was to the Floor like IBM’s chargers had been to its ThinkPad laptops of yesteryear: a regular interface that you could keep from one technology to the future. Of course, the Surface area Dock cost about the exact same as a Thunderbolt dock — about $200 to $300 — and it also locked you in to the Floor ecosystem But advantage was the vital. It was definitely several years ahead of its time, far too. Microsoft launched the authentic Floor Dock in 2015, properly ahead of Thunderbolt docks emerged as an I/O alternative in 2019 and 2020. (Microsoft also transported a snap-on dock for the Surface area Pro 3 prior to that, as perfectly as a docking option for its Lumia telephones.) The Floor Dock did what contemporary Thunderbolt docks do: supply power and legacy I/O expansion capabilities, like the capability to push several large-resolution shows.

But the Surface area Dock also utilised the Surface area Hook up port, equally its boon and its downfall. Area Connect, the flat waferish-connector that provides both equally electrical power and I/O capabilities to Area devices, never ever felt quite effectively taken gain of. Despite the fact that Microsoft hid the precise capabilities of the Surface Connect port, there shouldn’t have been a purpose why Microsoft couldn’t have taken the Dock to new heights, specifically gaming. Visualize what Microsoft could have presented with a Surface area pill that related to a Dock enclosure with an built-in or discrete GPU — that could have been a single ticket to a Floor gaming Pc.

Alternatively, Microsoft’s Area Dock meandered along. Microsoft’s integrated miniDisplayPort port in just the Floor tablet lineup definitely argued towards the will need for a Dock, but the USB-C ports that accompanied the 2019 Floor Pro X signaled its eventual stop, even if they lacked Thunderbolt abilities. That slip-up was rectified in the Surface area Laptop Studio, a higher place of Microsoft Floor layout.

For several years, I basically plugged new Area review models into the Dock. Now, I plug the Surface area Laptop computer Studio and other laptops we critique into a Thunderbolt dock as an alternative. As for the Area charger — perfectly, you can absolutely plug it into a Area Join port to cost a Area tablet gadget, but most Thunderbolt docks provide that ability as very well. Thunderbolt only definitely falls small in providing all the power a significant-driven Surface Ebook 3 or Floor Laptop Studio wants — and even then, the USB-C specification is evolving to address that problem, too.

Now, nonetheless? Adios, Microsoft’s Surface area Dock. The environment has passed you by.