I Want My USB-C! Why the Surface's Missing Port Is a Big Problem.

This week Microsoft released a pair of new computers: the Surface Pro 6 and the Surface Laptop 2. The new systems have Intel's quad-core 8th Gen processors, speedy SSDs, high-res displays and . . . a serial port that connects to your Reagan-era mouse. Ok, I'm kidding about the latter, but Microsoft is dead serious about living in the past when it refuses to offer USB Type-C ports on its latest PCs.

Microsoft might be the last major PC vendor not to offer Type-C on its high-end consumer PCs (which is especially strange, considering the Surface Book 2 and Surface Go both have that port). If you look around the industry, you'll still find some mainstream consumer and budget systems that don't support the standard, but everyone from HP to Apple offers this reversible connector for data, video and charging.

By writing off this critical port, Microsoft has left its customers disconnected from a burgeoning ecosystem of peripherals. It has also given consumers and businesses a really good reason not to buy its products. At this point, I wouldn't buy any computer that doesn't have at least a USB Type-C port, if not a Thunderbolt 3 connection, which is compatible with USB-C but also works with faster peripherals such as eGPUs. There are several reasons that everyone needs USB-C:

Universal Charging

Before Type-C, every brand of laptop had its own, proprietary connector and some brands had more than one. But with the new standard, any laptop that requires less than 100 watts of power can use interchangeable power bricks. Left your ThinkPad's AC adapter at home? No problem. You can borrow the one that came with your friend's MacBook Pro or your coworker's Dell XPS 13.

If you have an Android phone or other, non-Apple mobile device that was made in the last couple of years, it probably charges via Type-C. So you can use the same laptop power brick to charge your laptop, your phone and even your Nintendo Switch. By sticking with its own, proprietary Surface Connect port, Microsoft is forcing users to buy one of its chargers if they need a second brick.

Right now, the company charges a hefty $79 for a 65-watt charger ($57 on Amazon). You can pay the same price for a Surface Connect to Type-C dongle, which you can combine with a Type-C AC adapter to get a charger, but at that point, you're talking about spending more than $100 just to charge. No thanks.

You can buy a laptop-capable Type-C charger from a reputable brand for under $40. But swapping chargers is just the tip of the iceberg.

Power Banks

No matter what kind of laptop you have, you can never have enough battery life. Considering that the Surface Pro line has always had mediocre endurance, I'm sure the new Surface Pro 6 could use a little extra juice. If it had USB Type-C, you could attach it to a third-party power bank like the Anker PowerCore Speed 20,000 PD, which offers another 20,000 mAh of power; that's a few more hours of unplugged usage.

Docking

Microsoft would love to charge you $199 for its proprietary Surface Dock, but you can find a Type-C dock for under $130. But what's a few dollars between friends? The real problem is that you can't use other devices with Microsoft's dock.

At our office, we recently started hot desking (aka hoteling), a process where many workers use different desks every day and guests can just slide into an open space and start working. With USB Type-C, you can deliver power and data to any compatible laptop, Mac or PC, over the same cable. Any business that wants to even consider doing hot desking should stay far far away from Microsoft's new Surfaces.

New Peripherals

Though most external hard drives and Flash memory drives still use USB Type-A, Type-C models are out there and they can deliver faster transfer speeds. The new USB 3.1 Gen 2 standard delivers 10 Gbps, twice the bandwidth of old-fashioned USB 3.0.

But, considering how much Microsoft charges for its computers, there's no reason that the company should go with plain, vanilla USB-C. It should offer Thunderbolt 3, which can deliver up to 40 Gbps of data over a single connection. If these devices had Thunderbolt 3, they could dock with eGPUs, which would allow them to play AAA games or do serious video editing.

Microsoft Has Its Reasons

USB Type-C isn't exactly an unproven, fly-by-night technology. This standard has been in place for four years now and it started appearing on major computers all the way back in 2015. Microsoft was late to the game, but finally put a Type-C port on the Surface Book 2, which debuted in late 2017 and on the Surface Go tablet that shipped this past summer. So what gives?

However, on the latest Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, Type-C is conspicuously absent. At the launch event, a Microsoft rep told Tom's Hardware that customers are "divided" in terms of demand (some want it and some don't) so the company's response is to offer it on some devices and not others. Say what?

It's hard to believe that a major computer manufacturer would deliberately leave off a critical port because some consumers may not want it. First of all, by eschewing Type-C, the company is asking people NOT to buy the Surface Pro. People have a choice and, if they want Type-C, they're not going to switch from a Surface Pro tablet to a $1,499 Surface Book 2. They're just going to purchase one of the many competing Windows devices that has this critical port.

Perhaps the real reason Microsoft hasn't gone with USB-C is that the Redmond software giant just doesn't want to spend the money or time to change its chassis design and incorporate an extra port. Considering how much time and effort supposedly goes into developing these products, it's hard to believe that none of the designers could figure out how to poke another hole in the aluminum or swap out the mini DisplayPort for a similarly-sized Type-C connector.

Bottom Line

While Microsoft may offer a more eloquent reason for not embracing USB-C on all of its products, there's really no excuse. For any new tablet or ultraportable laptop, Type-C charging should be standard, particularly if you're spending more than $800.

Note: As with all of our op-eds, the opinions expressed here belong to the writer alone and not Tom's Hardware as a team.