Microsoft Designer Explain Why The New Surface Laptop Does Not Have USB Type-C Port

Microsoft has recently unveiled the Surface laptop for a starting price of $999. The Surface laptop launch also serves as a means to show off Windows 10S. The Surface laptop is highly powerful, but lacks USB Type-C ports, due to which many questions have arisen pertaining to the future proofing of this device. 

PC Advisor reported that Microsoft's decision to remove the USB Type-C ports from the Microsoft Surface laptop seem to be drastic as the prototype had two ports on it. The benefit of a USB Type-C port is that is double sided unlike a USB Type-A port, which only works if the connector is on a particular side. USB Type-C is also very convenient for the user and takes up less space. 

USB Type-C is mostly advertised to be faster than USB Type-A, which is not the case. In fact, USB Type-C has been introduced to future proof devices and develop further technology in port connectivity. In fact, USB 2.0 that still ruled the computing world was recently replaced by USB 3.0, which had a bandwidth of 5Gbps compared to the 480Mbps cap of the USB 2.0.

Further, the capacity of the USB 3.0 has been increased from 5Gbps to 10Gbps, and the blue color designated USB 3.0 is now called USB 3.1 Gen1. The upgraded and faster USB 3.0 is accented in red and is called USB 3.1 Gen2. However, Apple brought the USB Type-C ports to its devices and other companies followed suit.

Microsoft Surface laptop is an education-themed laptop, and therefore Microsoft has given only one USB Type-A port on it so that students, who are the target consumers of this product, will not run into compatibility problems with new and old tech. According to a Microsoft designer, USB Type-C ports haven't fully matured, meaning that they still have compatibility, power and cabling issues.

Microsoft Surface laptop will arguably remove the need to depend on new age tech for students, and thereby enable them to use their pre-existing USB mouse and use the laptop without getting a Type-C to Type-A adapter. The Microsoft Surface laptop retails at $999 for a base Core i5 model and goes all the way up to $2,199 for a Core i7 model.