- Manufacturer: Microsoft
- Category: Laptop/2-in-1
- Price: $1899.99 as tested
- Review copy purchased by the reviewer.
Microsoft is committed to bringing premium first-party hardware in much the same way that Apple does. The announcement of the original Surface and Surface Pro back in 2013 was met with a lot of criticism, that such a tablet couldn’t possibly be useful in any way shape or form. The keyboard was lackluster with a small touchpad and a horrid typing experience. The only saving grace, really, was the fantastic display combined with a surprisingly useful digitizer, something that many thought was only for creative people. It turns out, however, that having a pen is immensely useful. The design, too, was a spot on, an industrial piece of art with specifications that made it potent for everyday work.
The original Surface Pro wasn’t quite the instant success that Microsoft had hoped it to be, though they persisted in their adventure to create the perfect integrated mobile device: The Surface Book.
Enter the 4th generation Surface of products.
Announced on October 6th of 2015, the Surface Book is a departure from what had been a move into a tablet first design into something that could more readily be able to replace full blown, larger laptops. This is a laptop that can be a tablet sometimes, if you feel the need to do such. At the reveal, it was confusingly initially positioned as a direct competitor to the MacBook Pro before it’s true nature was revealed. It still is positioned as a competitor, though it also includes features that no one device in Apple’s lineup has. But it also is able to provide for a potentially better representation of the 2-in-1 market with perhaps a bit more elegance.
Surface Book |
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| CPU | Skylake i5-6300U | Skylake i5-6300U | Skylake i7-6600U |
| GPU | Intel HD 520 | Intel + "NVIDIA GeForce" (Approx. GT 940M) w/1GB GDDR5 | Intel + "NVIDIA GeForce" (Approx. GT 940M) w/1GB GDDR5 |
| Memory | 8-16GB RAM | 8-16GB RAM | 8-16GB RAM |
| Display | 13.5" IPS 3000x2000 resolution 1800:1 Contrast Ratio 100% sRGB, individually calibrated 10 point touch and Pen support |
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| Storage | PCIe 3.0 Based SSD 128 GB to 1 TB | ||
| I/O | USB 3.0 x 2 (In Base) SD Card reader (In Base) Surface Connector (In Tablet and Base) Headset Jack Mini DisplayPort |
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| Dimensions | Laptop (mm) : 232 x 312 x 13.0-22.8 (inches) : 9.14 x 12.3 x 0.51-0.90 Tablet Only (mm) : 220.2 x 312.3 x 7.7 (inches) : 8.67 x 12.3 x 0.30 |
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| Weight | Laptop 1.515 kg / 3.34 lbs Tablet Only 726 g / 1.6 lbs | Laptop 1.579 kg / 3.48 lbs Tablet Only 726 g / 1.6 lbs | Laptop 1.579 kg / 3.48 lbs Tablet Only 726 g / 1.6 lbs |
| Camera | Windows Hello (Front) 8 MP Rear Facing 5 MP Front Facing |
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| Price | $1499+ | $1899+ | $2099+ |
The Surface Book follows the same aesthetic as all previous incarnations within this family of mobile products, with a very industrial looking and understated exterior. There are two portions. The tablet, or Clipboard, and the keyboard itself. 18Wh’s of battery are contained within the Clipboard portion and an additional 52Wh is sitting in keyboard dock itself, adding up to a total of a quite impressive 70Wh of battery capacity. Also in the keyboard portion, on some models, is the dedicated NVIDIA 940M equivalent GPU, something that sets this far apart from other devices in this same size and weight class.
The keyboard dock is hefty enough to be able to offset the weight of the main tablet portion, so it doesn't inadvertently just fall backwards off of your lap. The unique hinge is a dynamic fulcrum design that allows for a 360 degree range of motion by way of detaching and reattaching the Clipboard portion facing the other direction. The hinge itself elongates as you open up the display, so to create a larger surface area touching the surface you've placed it on. It's rather ingenious how they've done it. And the Clipboard is attached in a far more secure way than has been used in anything before. No silly magnets of relatively weak aluminum clips that move against the force of springs.
Microsoft decided that wouldn't be quite good enough for their flagship device, and instead applied a ferry dose of science to get the job done. They've used a nickel-titanium alloy that has shape memory, able to contract when electricity is applied, but maintaining a rigidity higher than that of other more common materials. Overall it's still far less balanced than a traditional laptop due to the weight distribution and taller aspect ratio, but it's better than it could be, certainly.
Press the required button and current is sent through the two outside clips that allow them to release. An audible click is heard when it's ready, and then just pick it up from the keyboard dock. For the Surface Book that doesn't have the dGPU it's a simple affair of safely disconnecting the USB devices before allowing you to pick it up, but with the dGPU it has to disabled that first, and can't do that unless apps that are using it are closed down. It'll inform you though, and it works rather simply and easily.
The display is a a marvel to behold in practice. The "PixelSense" display is a departure from the IGZO displays used in the Surface Pro lineup and is instead a 3:2 aspect ratio traditional amorphous silicon panel operating at 3000x2000 resolution. That gives it a 267 PPI at 13.5 inches. Scaling in Windows is actually much better than it has been, though individual applications might still need adjustments or aren't fully compatible with such high DPI's that you might wish to use with this high a resolution on a relatively small panel. Though it doesn't have the power savings that would otherwise be found in an IGZO display, especially when dealing with something as high-DPI as this.
The touch and pen controller is an in-house development, created especially for the new Surface line to provide a better and more responsive experience with both pen and your fingers. The result is a much improved experience with far lower latency than in previous iterations. There is very little latency between when you place the pen on the screen and start writing. It's an almost seamless experience.
The pen is the primary reason this was acquired, because I enjoy writing down notes and using a device in this way. I've been searching for the perfect experience, and it hasn't quite existed, even in Surface Pro guise, until now. Battery life while inking down complex notes or otherwise using the pen to control whatever application is on screen has never been good, though with the Surface Book, that's now a mostly non-issue. The shape is such that it's comfortable as a tablet itself to hold, though when it's placed backwards on the keyboard dock it's actually quite comfortable to hold and use while writing on it.
Skylake U
The device model tested here is the lowest specced dGPU model available, with an i5-6300U, 8GB LPDDR3 1866MHz and a 256GB PCIE based SSD.
The processors that are included only come in two real flavors, either a dual-core 2.4GHz i5-6300U or a dual-core 2.6GHz i7-6600U. The i7 is clearly faster but not just because of the higher clockspeed. It also includes a full 4MB of cache, useful for the iGPU and for other CPU operations. These are, of course, very low 15W processors, being designed specifically for thin and light ultrabook class devices such as this, the Surface Book. There's also LPDDR3 operating at 1866MHz installed instead of LPDDR4, which is compatible with Skylake U
This means that performance will be on par with other ultrabook class devices, though perhaps slightly faster due to the architectural differences. Certainly it should theoretically be fast enough for the typical load that you'd encounter while working on this type of device. One should never treat it as a desktop replacement, though it should hopefully be able to complete work quick enough to not be too much of a bother.
Overall it provides a similar experience to similarly devices, with the advantages of Skylake very apparent.
Storage in this sample is provided by Samsung, and is a Samsung PM951, which is very similar to the 950 Pro, though it trades MLC with TLC but retains NVMe and PCIE 3.0 x4 connectvity. This means that it's incredibly fast, though might suffer in write speeds when compared directly to the 950 Pro. The conclusion is that it's very fast.
But does it do as we break away from normal applications and move into a realm that we here are very fond of: Gaming?
Surface Book Gaming Performance
This device might not immediately be seen as a gaming machine, and nor should it with it's 940M equivalent GPU and relatively weak CPU compared to proper gaming laptops. But that doesn't mean that it's entirely impossible to play games at appreciable levels of detail and at decent resolutions. Granted, some more graphically intense games aren't going to be playable at all, and you most certainly won't be playing at the native resolution either.
And key to this is that you won't necessarily be playing games using the integrated HD 520 either.. In this case, the iGPU is the GT2 within the lineup of Intel, and it operates at a frequency of 1GHz. There are 24 univfied shaders that share the system RAM for it's VRAM. It supports DirectX 12_1, though it might not be wise to play games on this part, as at this speed it won't be too terribly fast. Fallout 4 achieved a maximum of 18FPS at 720P, and Black Ops III achieved 12FPS at 768P, hardly playable. Older games, or more isometric and simple games are playable with the HD 520, though at significantly reduced resolution and effects. It's the GTX 940M that's very interesting here.
The 940M here is a variation of the actual official part, that comes with 2GB of DDR3. In the Surface Book it's clocked slightly lower and comes with 1GB of dedicated GDDR5. It retains the 384 shaders, 16 ROPs and 32 TMU's. The memory bus is limited to a paltry 64-bits, however. As we'll see below, though, that might not have as much of a difference at this level as we might think. Optimus is used to great effect here, and of course it's completely turned off when not in use. You can set which application uses the dGPU in NVIDIA's settings in the control panel, either globally or individually.
So we tested a variety of games to see how it did. All games were played at 1080P unless specifically stated. Each game had different settings attached, which are in the notes below the graph. But needless to say, this very small and minuscule device is much more capable than it might outwardly seem.
Game Settings Notes:
| Batman Arkham Knight | 720P, lowest possible settings, 16x AF All GameWorks Off |
| Batman Arkham Origin | Everything on, No AA, AO Normal, DX11 Enhanced |
| Battlefield 4 | Medium preset |
| Battlefield Bad Company 2 | High preset |
| Call of Duty: Black Ops III | 720P, Lowest settings, no AA |
| Civilization V | 1080P Medium Detail, No AA |
| Dirt 3 | Medium preset, 2xMSAA |
| Evochron Mercenary | Highest Settings |
| Fallout 4 | 720P Medium Preset |
| Grand Theft Auto V | Everything Normal, No AA, x16 AF |
| Hitman: Absolution | 1080P Medium Preset |
| Just Cause 2 | Medium settings, NoAA16xAF SSAO medium everything on, concrete jungle |
| Shadow of Mordor | High Preset |
| Skyrim | High preset |
| Sniper Elite III | Medium, ambient occlusion, tessellation |
| Sniper Elite V2 | Medium Preset |
| Star Wars: Battlefront | Low Preset |
| The Witcher 3 | Low presets |
| Tomb Raider | 1080P High Quality preset |
Something interesting happened here. The Surface Book has become a decent on the go gaming machine. No, it's not going to blow you away in quality or in resolution, but even 720P (though slightly stretched vertically) looks great on this size of screen. The only truly unplayable games are the obvious ones in the current modern lineup, Batman Arkham Knight, Black Ops III and The Witcher 3. Even the lowest settings were strangely poor experiences. But despite those few titles, the Surface Book can let you game on the go very easily, if you're willing to lower graphical fidelity to allow it to play. It's a surprise, to say the least, but casual gaming on the go in a portable package is indeed possible here. What's even better is that while it does get hot, and the fans ramp up, it isn't too terribly loud or annoying even in the most intense of situations.
Battery Life
Battery life is rightfully epxected to be rather long, considering that it's filled with power efficient components and has a very large 70Wh battery spread among the two halves. With normal web-browsing we found that the Clipboard itself lasted for a good 3:54 hours. Altogether it lasted for far longer, being the endurance champ of the year. The test involved running a Python script that ran through 10 websites with 5 that were graphically intense with Flash ads and 5 that were more text based.
Conclusion
What's it like to actually use the device? Every day work is actually quite enjoyable. The trackpad is large enough to be useful, and responsive enough. There's slightly more friction than on its competitor, though it still is accurate and easy to use. The keyboard is slightly spongy and lacks a subtle curve on the keys. Also, the color and backlighting color make them hard to discern and see when there's sufficient light, though touch typists won't be bothered by that. Overall the key-travel is great and the full size makes for a mostly enjoyable typing experience.
Over the lat two weeks I used it for everything (aside from actual game reviews), from editing and stitching together videos, editing images and writing articles for here. It was a mostly acceptable experience. The long battery life was an absolute wonderful thing, and a godsend when working on most tasks. Even when doing more strenuous tasks, and those that made use of the dGPU, it lasted far longer than I would have expected.
There were a few small issues that are concerning, though. The dGPU can't be updated by normal means, such as by downloading drivers from NVIDIA. It simply won't be acknowledged by the drivers. Microsoft controls the updating of those drivers, unless you want to chance doing it yourself by modifying an ini file and thus installing untrusted drivers. GeForce Experience isn't included here either. It's important to note that Star Wars Battlefront won't play on the dGPU without the latest driver from NVIDIA, so I had to do just that. Also, Intel's display driver that ships with it seems to have some trouble with Excel for some reason. The display drivers would consistently crash with simple spreadsheets being displayed. They would recover, though it would be very annoying.
There were also times where the dGPU was suddenly not recognized and it had to be restarted in order to be able to use it in gaming, instead of the not so potent Intel HD520, though it is faster than last generations iGPU's.
Overall it's a very impressive device. It fills something more than a niche because it's a capable laptop on its own but has more features than any 2-in-1 or other laptops in it's class. Yes, it's expensive, but what you receive is a well made, good looking and quite powerful little device. The screen is positively gorgeous, the 3:2 aspect ratio is useful, and the battery life is very strong. It's a very good buy considering the size of this machine and it's overall capabilities.
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