Microsoft Surface Dock vs Surface Dock 2: What's the difference?

The Surface Dock and Surface Dock 2 are accessories that allow you to connect multiple devices and peripherals to your Surface. You can attach devices like keyboards, mice, and webcams and push your Surface device's display output to multiple monitors. Both docks also have Ethernet ports, allowing you to have a rock-solid connection to the Internet. The idea is that you can set the dock up once with all of your devices and accessories and then just plug the dock into your Surface using the Surface Connect port.

Finally, a refresh

The original Surface Dock was left without an update for a long time. After years of having just the original dock, Microsoft announced the Surface Dock 2. The Surface Dock 2 has USB-C ports to work with modern devices, has better charging capabilities, and better support for external displays. It even has a longer cable than the original dock to make it easier to connect your Surface to the dock.

The Surface Dock 2 can power two 4K displays at once at 60Hz or two 5K displays at once at 30Hz. It also has a total power delivery of 199W, and 120 of those Watts can charge your Surface device. The remaining 79W can help charge accessories attached to the dock.

In contrast, the original Surface Dock has a much lower set of specs. When pushing to external displays, the original Surface Dock caps at 4096 x 2160 at 30Hz or 2960 x 1440 at 60Hz. It also has a lower 90W for power delivery. As a result, the Surface Book 2 can sometimes drain power even while charging.

	Surface Dock 2	Surface Dock
USB-C ports	2x front facing 2x rear-facing (video enabled)	No
USB-A	2x rear-facing USB-A 3.2 (Up to 10Gbps)	4x USB 3.0 (Up to 5Gbps)
Ethernet	Gigabit Ethernet	Gigabit Ethernet
Audio	3.5mm audio in/out	Audio out
Mini DisplayPorts	No	2x Mini DisplayPorts
Security lock slot	Yes	Yes

In addition to its better transfer speeds and port selection, the Surface Dock 2 has enterprise management tools that allow admins to allow access to specific sets of ports depending on authentication.

The downside to the Surface Dock 2 is that it only works with certain Surface devices. To use a Surface Dock 2, you need a Surface device made in 2017 or later. Based on this Microsoft support document, the following Surface devices are supported by the Surface Dock 2:

• Surface Book 3
• Surface Book 2
• Surface Pro 7
• Surface Pro 6
• Surface Pro (5th Gen)
• Surface Pro (5th Gen) with LTE Advanced
• Surface Pro X
• Surface Laptop 3
• Surface Laptop 2
• Surface Laptop (1st Gen)
• Surface Go 2
• Surface Go
• Surface Go 2 with LTE Advanced
• Surface Studio 2

The Surface Dock 2 improves upon the original Surface Dock in just about every way. It's faster, has more modern ports, can push more resolution to external displays, supports audio in and out, and has more management tools. The Surface Dock 2 is pricey, but it's only $60 more than the original Surface Dock right now. For that price difference, you're getting quite a few improvements. The only reason to grab an original Surface Dock is if you use a Surface device that can't work with the Surface Dock 2 or if you need to use MiniDisplayPorts.