USB-C Might Lastly Discover a Residence on Future Floor Professional Pill
A brand new Floor Professional might arrive later this yr, and Microsoft could give its removable pill design a giant makeover. A part of that makeover entails making USB-C a local characteristic for the primary time on the Floor Professional line, if a patent submitting uncovered by Home windows United proves correct.
Although different PC producers have embraced the USB-C connector — and even the sooner Thunderbolt three over USB-C in some circumstances — Microsoft had been reluctant to undertake the expertise, choosing legacy connectors to take care of compatibility with different peripherals. To this point, the Floor Professional line features a magnetic Floor Connector for charging, a USB-A port, and a Mini DisplayPort. On the picture within the patent software, you’ll discover a USB-C port alongside the USB-A and Mini DisplayPort.
With the potential inclusion of USB-C as detailed by the illustration within the patent submitting, it’s unclear what the destiny of Microsoft’s magnetic Floor Join port shall be. The concept for a magnetic charging port was popularized by Apple initially on older generations of MacBook, however the firm dropped its magnetic charging cable in its transition to USB-C. In contrast to older USB-A ports, USB-C can function an enter port to switch information, can be utilized to output video, and likewise ship energy. In principle, Microsoft might depend on USB-C right here as a charging port when it’s not getting used for video output or information switch.
Although USB-C doesn’t supply the comfort and security of unlatching ought to somebody journey over the charging cable, it might make the Floor Professional 7 extra future-proof. Moreover, if Microsoft applied the sooner Thunderbolt three over USB-C protocol, it might make the Floor Professional 7 a extra interesting gadget to avid gamers, as Thunderbolt three would permit customers to make use of discrete desktop graphics with a linked eGPU.
A earlier Microsoft patent submitting steered that the corporate was exploring choices to deliver magnetic charging to the USB-C port, but it surely’s unclear at the moment if such an answer could be applied for the Floor Professional 7. Firms typically discover concepts and patent them, however few patented concepts truly get applied in a ultimate industrial product. Microsoft had additionally beforehand explored methods to make the USB-C port even slimmer.
