Microsoft’s Surface USB-C dongle to launch by year-end

Last year, Microsoft had promised the launch of the dongle by 2017-end.

Last year when Microsoft released the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, many users were disappointed for the lack of a USB Type-C support included on the devices. However, the company soon offered an olive branch, promising that it would be releasing a USB Type-C dongle by the end of 2017. But here we are, three months into 2018, and we see no promises kept. However, Microsoft has once again said that is still working on launching the dongle, and that it is “on the roadmap for later this year.”

Microsoft confirmed this piece of information to The Verge. The USB Type-C will make use of the Surface Connect port and provide support for USB Type-C accessories. For users of modern Android phones, this would mean being easily able to share accessories between their PCs and smartphones.

Lately, USB Type-C support has been adopted by a bunch of flagship laptops. Last year, Apple made the controversial decision to make use of only Type-C connectors on its MacBook. Google to adopted the port for its Pixelbook.

It is quite unclear why Microsoft delayed the launch of the USB-C dongle. Although, recently, Microsoft did start to support the new connector on the Surface Book 2, which is the only Surface device that natively supports USB-C.

Meanwhile, a Twitter user, who goes by the handle @h0x0d, shared an image of a USB-C dongle, which is apparently the leaked image of the one Microsoft is about to launch. It goes without saying, that this information be taken with a pinch of salt, but to be honest, how different could the dongle even look.