Microsoft Explains Why Its Surface Devices May Never Get Thunderbolt Support or User-Replaceable RAM

[Tsing]

Image: Microsoft



Microsoft’s Surface devices are capable workhorses, but there’s a few oversights that users have been complaining about, which include the lack of Thunderbolt USB-C ports and RAM that’s soldered to the motherboard. A recent presentation spotted by WalkingCat (via MSPoweruser) has revealed why – apparently, both of these design choices were made for security purposes.



Surfaces don't have Thunderbolt because its insecure pic.twitter.com/lb7YYOOQ4Y— WalkingCat (@h0x0d) April 25, 2020



“Thunderbolt uses DMA (Direct Memory Access) which means the port can...

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[Brian_B]

Security.

Yeah. Sure. ~~ This close to greatness, yet again.

 

[LeRoy_Blanchard]

They're kidding right?

 

[Grimlakin]

You know what that makes for solid arguments to stop using these bargain basement Dell laptops at work. "Look the surface books are more secure." Plus a lot of our C level folks and VP's have the surface devices anyway. I just need one with an RTX 2080 and cutting edge AMD CPU. Thanks.

 

[Zarathustra]

I always thought that surfaces were neat devices. The first gen were somewhat underpowered, but they are better now.

I just cant bring myself to buy any computer where the RAM is soldered on. Any device I buy is going to be designed around my convenience as a tinkerer. I want a little door where user serviceble things like drives, WLAN cards and RAM are easily accessible. In an ideal world there would even be a swappable MXM GPU card.

Thunderbolt would be nice too, but I've never used it, so I don't know what I'd use it for. Essentially external PCIe, right?

This is why I am still using my 2012 era Dell Latitude. A little door for the drive, a little door for the RAM. WLAN is replaceable etc.

And let snot kid ourselves, this explanation is just an excuse. The real reason here is cost and to drive consumer behavior.

Doors and sockets drive up the cost. If you can save $5 per unit, it adds up when you are making millions of them.

That, and why let a user buy a larger SSD for $75 from someone else when you can charge them $250 extra to have it included with the machine?

Its for one reason and one reason alone. The financial gain of Microsoft to the detriment of the user. Just like with Apple.