Microsoft Surface Book review

 

An amazing laptop that does even more as a tablet

 

 

Our Verdict

While the Surface Book brings many technological innovations to the laptop space, its greatest strength is that it's just an all-around terrific device.

For

• Futuristic design
• Unrivaled display
• Seamless tablet separation

Against

• Battery life falls well below promises
• Major updates are still in tow 

During its short tenure as a hardware maker, Microsoft has become the de-facto trailblazer for Windows-running devices. It all started with the lofty promise that its Surface tablet could replace your laptop. We were skeptical about it three years ago, but after the Surface Pro 3, Microsoft nearly perfected the formula and showed veteran computer manufacturers how hybrids should be made.
Now, Microsoft introduces the Surface Book as the 'ultimate laptop'. Like the Surface tablets before it, this laptop takes a unique spin on the notebook format that's been around for over 40 years. Between the 3:2 aspect ratio, 13.5-inch screen and its practically-trademarked 'dynamic fulcrum' hinge, there isn't any machine on the planet like the Surface Book – and then, with the touch of a button and a gentle tug, it becomes a tablet.
It all sounds like an amazing idea on paper, and with the added "Holy cow, Microsoft made a laptop!" factor, the Surface Book sounds like a thoroughly amazing device. Let's see just how well Redmond made good on the hype.

Recent developments

There’s no time like the present to start looking towards the future of Microsoft’s first laptop. The top-end Surface Book i7 may run circles around the original, but it’s evident now more than ever that a true successor is on the way, even if it’s not immediate.
If reports are to be believed, the Surface Book 2 may not bear the versatility of its predecessor, opting instead to adopt a traditional laptop form factor. Clipboard mode may cease to exist as imminently as next month, but with its retirement a Surface Book price drop is expected.
In the meantime, UK readers can snag an entry-level Intel Core i5-powered Surface Book of their own for a newly discounted price of £1,104. That’s a considerable improvement from the £1,449 asking cost of the past, and certainly an offer to keep in mind if you’re in the market for a new laptop.

Design

If a tear in the space-time continuum were to suddenly rip open, two things would fall out: the Terminator and then the Surface Book quickly tumbling to the Earth behind it. From the snake-like hinge, the flat design and even down to the washed-out silver color of this laptop, everything about it just seems like it came from the future.
Milled from two solid blocks of magnesium, the Surface Book feels sturdy and has a most minimalistic style unto its own.
From keyboard deck to the palm rests, the entire interior of this laptop is one flat surface of metal, save for the large space reserved for the glass touchpad. Similarly, the screen lid is made of one uninterrupted slate of magnesium, with its only extra flourishes being a mirror-finished Windows logo in the center and a rear-facing camera.
Along the chiseled sides, you'll find two flat edges that start from the top of the display and terminate at the tip of the palm rest. That's not the only seamless transition.
Unlike most other convertible devices, the screen and base sections share nearly the same thickness and weight. Without the foreknowledge that the display can actually detach, the Surface Book looks like one continuous device, thanks to the hinge.

Mobilizing the desktop

The Surface Book's other signature trick is the screen can pop off the base with just the tap of a button. Technically, Microsoft is coming late to the 2-in-1 laptop game with various devices being able to do the same, including Acer's Switch family, Toshiba's Click notebooks, some HP devices and the list goes on.
However, no one has made a system as seamless as the Surface Book.
Undocking and attaching the Clipboard is nearly as seamless as the Surface Book's design. After either pressing the eject button on the keyboard or the virtual button in the taskbar, the screen will blink off for a second and then notify you it's safe to detach the screen with one quick tug.
It's fast and simple, however, the timing takes a little getting used to. After you get the prompt to detach the screen, you have to wait for about half a second before you can actually lift the display off its base.

Another unique feature to this notebook is it's the first to integrate a discrete graphics processor, or GPU, into a hybrid system. Tucked underneath the keyboard is a customized Nvidia GeForce GPU that makes this laptop just a bit more capable with media production and gaming.
We've seen this sort of GPU docking technology before in machines like the MSI GS30 Shadow with GamingDock and Alienware's GPU Amplifier solution. Microsoft has improved upon dockable graphics, as the Surface Book just needs a short moment to disengage the extra parts, whereas both the Alienware and MSI solutions require the laptop to reboot completely.

With a dedicated GPU, naturally the first tests I conducted were gaming ones. The Clipboard and its Skylake processor have more than enough power to make Hearthstone fly, even at full resolution. Plugging the display into the keyboard base unlocks even more performance from the dedicated GPU. With the discrete graphics chip in tow, the Surface Book can play Rocket League at 30 frames per second (fps) in full screen and medium settings.
For more serious games, like Metal Gear the Phantom Pain, I was able to get it running between 24 to 29 fps, but only after dropping the resolution to 1,920 x 1,080 and practically turning off all the settings. Microsoft's first laptop won't be replacing your PC gaming rig any time soon, but it's surprising how well this machine gets along with only 1GB of video RAM.
Of course, all this power also makes the Surface Book a productivity beast that easily takes on task after task. Lightroom runs incredibly fast on this 13-inch laptop, thanks to the added power of the Nvidia graphics. What's more amazing is I'm able to edit photos quickly while I have a browser full of 10 tabs and streaming video pushed over to a connected monitor.

Benchmarks

Here's how the Microsoft Surface Book performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

• 3DMark Cloud Gate: 7,285; Sky Diver: 6,089; Fire Strike: 1,868
• Cinebench CPU: 301 points; Graphics: 32 fps,
• GeekBench: 3,166 (single-core); 6,635 (multi-core)
• PCMark 8 (Home Test): 2,336 points
• PCMark 8 Battery Life: 3 hours and 58 minutes

The Surface Book has broken all sorts of benchmark speed record, thanks to its hot new Intel Skylake and Nvidia GeForce chipset. Just in terms of processing power alone, it's 301-point Cinebench score is significant jump compared to the Dell XPS 13, which ran with a last-generation Broadwell Intel Core I5 chip.
Thanks to the extra boost from the discrete graphics chip, the Surface Book also has more than double the performance for gaming. This is evidenced by its 1,868 point Fire Strike score compared to the Dell's 739-point performance.
The only figure I can draw to compare this machine to the 15-inch MacBook Pro is the GeekBench score. In the multi-core test, Microsoft's laptop finished with 6,635 points, whereas two outlets saw the 15-inch Apple's steely steed completed the test with an average of 14,258 – an unsurprising result, considering the MacBook Pro has twice the number of processor cores.

Pixels to please

With 3,000 x 2,000 pixels under its belt, the Surface Book sits at a happy middle ground of being sharper than most other laptops (including every MacBook in existence) without the troubles that plague 4K screens. You'll never see the separation between the pixes, l because they're so tiny, and Windows 10 scales beautifully at 200%.
While most applications, including the Origin, Steam and Battle.net launcher would look tiny on a 4K screen, these windows look small, but not uncomfortably so, on the Surface Book.
I even like the 3:2 aspect ratio. The ability to read more lines of text and not have a Lightroom window that's not vertically squished together more than makes up for the thick black bars that appear when you watch movies. Microsoft fashions its displays after A4 paper, which makes the Clipboard feel like a natural device for writing and art work.

 

Battery life

Battery life on the Surface Book is both pretty good and surprisingly disappointing. While Microsoft has promised 12 hours of continual usage and other outlets report getting even more juice out of the machine, our best time for the device was 7 hours and 39 minutes. As for the Clipboard on its own, the tablet can last for 4 hours.
While these are more than respectable numbers considering all the hardware inside the Surface Book, I honestly expected a much longer run time. The good news is this notebook recharges quickly, going from zero to 100% charge in under two hours.
This could largely be due some problems early Surface Book owners are running into. My unit seems to be among this group of afflicted models. Just some of the major bugs include the system not starting up properly when connected to the dock and display driver failures. The latter of which cause battery life to drop dramatically by three or more hours.
Microsoft has said it is "aware of aware scenarios where Surface Book's display may deliver a display driver error and that we'll address through fixes issued via Windows Update within a few weeks after launch."
By comparison, the older generation Dell XPS 13 lasted for 7 hours and 40 minutes, while several outlets were able to stretch their usage of the most recent 15-inch MacBook Pro for an average of 9 hours and change. So again, the Surface Book's battery life is by no means terrible, but it could get a lot better with future updates.