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.