Microsoft appears to have confirmed that its long-awaited USB-C dongle will finally reach Surface users in 2018, more than a year after it was first unveiled.
Many forecasters had originally expected the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro would be launched with USB-C built in, but Microsoft held off, claiming that this relatively new technology wasn’t yet ready for the mainstream. The company did, however, promise a dongle that would plug into the traditional USB port and offer Type-C connectivity for whoever wanted it. The scheduled release date was later in 2017, though that passed without incident.
Now, it seems Microsoft is ready to launch the dongle and will do so sometime in 2018.
Though the company hasn’t yet released an official statement confirming production, a Microsoft spokesperson told theverge.com how the USB-C dongle was “on the roadmap for later this year.”
The attachment will allow Surface users to charge their device or transmit data. The added benefit here is that early adopting device owners could now carry a single charger for all their myriad devices.
Joking about why a USB-C port wasn’t added to the latest Surface range in the first place, Microsoft’s Surface chief, Panos Panay said: “If you love Type-C, it means you love dongles. We’re giving a dongle to people who love dongles.”
Though the trend is moving towards much greater and more widespread USB-C integration, Microsoft may not quite see this dongle as the first step towards native integration just yet. As things stand, Panay is keen to keep the ports that matter most to Microsoft’s consumers – or at least hold off on adding a USB-C port if it means losing a traditional USB slot. Therefore, USB-C may be the favourite of the early adopters and the tech lovers, but it needs to make more inroads into the mainstream before Microsoft considers including it as standard.
