(Updated) Microsoft Announces Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock

Update 11:20 AM ET: Microsoft has now officially announced the Surface Thunderbolt 4 dock, which is available today at $299.99. Thanks to Thunderbolt 4 support, it can connect to two 4K monitors at up to 60Hz, transfer data with up to 40Gbps speeds, and charge devices with power of up to 96W. Microsoft will continue to sell its Surface Dock and Surface Dock 2 that use the company’s Surface Connect port instead of USB-C.

Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a 3rd-gen Surface Dock in the coming weeks. Pictures of the new dock have apparently leaked via a recent eBay listing spotted by Windows Central, which confirmed that the images were authentic.

Microsoft’s 3rd-gen Surface Dock appears to be slightly slimmer than the previous model released back in 2020, and it also uses USB-C instead of Microsoft’s proprietary Surface Connect port. The new dock features one USB-A port and one USB-C port on the front, plus two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, a headphone jack, an Ethernet port, and a power connector on the back.

According to Windows Central, this 3rd-gen Surface Dock will be the first model to support Thunderbolt 4 over USB-C, something that both Microsoft’s Surface Pro 9 and Surface Laptop 5 also support. It’s not clear yet if this new Surface Dock will be fully compatible with devices from third-party manufacturers, but it would quite be surprising if it doesn’t.

Despite Microsoft being pretty slow to embrace USB-C ports and Intel’s proprietary Thunderbolt technology on its Surface devices, this upcoming Surface Dock ditching Surface Connect in favor of USB-C is a welcome change. Even though it’s important for Microsoft to make its Surface accessories compatible with existing Surface devices, it’s currently hard to recommend the $259.99 Surface Dock 2 when it’s only compatible with devices with a Surface Connect port.