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How is Microsoft's Magnetic Connect different from Apple's MagSafe for MacBooks?

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How is Microsoft's Magnetic Connect different from Apple's MagSafe for MacBooks?

While Microsoft's October press event was heavily AI-oriented — to the shock of no one — the company did have major announcements regarding the Surface Laptop Ultra. It's powered by NVIDIA's RTX Spark platform, and sports up to 128GB of shared system and graphics RAM. In a demonstration, Microsoft showed it running apps like DaVinci Resolve and Gears of War: E-Day simultaneously without missing a heartbeat.

One smaller point that captured our attention was a new power port dubbed Magnetic Connect. Charging tech isn't normally a big deal, yet Microsoft devoted a portion of the show to it. That's remarkable when the company could've easily spent a few more minutes elaborating on Spark or Windows 11's AI upgrades.

For Apple fans, the tech was immediately reminiscent of one thing: the MagSafe charging ports on MacBooks. There are a couple of important differences, though, and we wouldn't be surprised if Apple changes course to copy Microsoft. That would be an interesting reversal.

The major difference is that whereas MagSafe is a proprietary port — in the unfortunate tradition of other Apple formats, like Lightning — Magnetic Connect really isn't. It's just a Power Delivery-equipped USB-C port paired with a custom magnetic charging cable. The cable's connector aligns with the port automatically and uses a special funnel-shaped tip to slide in smoothly. No jokes, please.

Why does this matter? As Microsoft notes, it means that the port can be used for other functions when you're not charging. You can hook up an external monitor, a keyboard, your smartphone or any other peripheral you can think of.


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