Microsoft Surface Book review: Surface Book 2 is here, but what’s new?

Microsoft Surface Book review: Display and Speakers

Aside from the unique hinge, the Surface Book deviates from the norm with its 3:2 aspect ratio display. Just like the Google Chromebook Pixel, this means the display is taller and more box-like than normal. The aspect ratio lends itself particularly well to working or browsing the web, but less so for watching films, as you end up with black bars.

Compared to the Chromebook Pixel, the Surface Book packs in more pixels-per-inch, with a 3,000×2,000 resolution 13.5in PixelSense multitouch panel. This equates to a pixel density of 267ppi, allowing text and images to appear crisp and sharp. Windows 10’s scaling options also make dealing with its high-resolution display far more palatable than previous versions of Windows, and setting it to around 200% is a happy medium.

Microsoft claims that the panel covers 100% sRGB, has 1,700:1 contrast ratio and 400cd/m2 of brightness. Our calibrator showed that it exceeded these measurements in all but sRGB coverage, where it was just shy of full coverage at a still excellent 99%. Its contrast ratio was in fact measured at 1,736:1 and white levels of 435.1cd/m2, which is insanely bright for a laptop.

You’ll probably find yourself using 75% maximum brightness indoors to save your eyesight, but having the extra overhead for when you want to use the Surface Book outdoors is a boon. The only slight annoyance is that there aren’t any screen brightness shortcuts on the keyboard, so you’ll have to jump into the settings or Windows Action Centre to make any adjustments. With such bright whites, you could be understandably concerned how black levels would fare, but, as the high contrast ratio implied, the black levels were suitably deep at 0.25cd/m2. Microsoft certainly hasn’t skimped on a high-quality panel, but it’s a shame it doesn’t also come with any window management software to help you drag and snap your windows around the screen with ease.

The speakers, meanwhile, are discretely located on the outer edges of the display and put out a very respectable amount of volume. They’re a bit bright and harsh around the treble without much support from the low-end, but they do a serviceable job for YouTube videos and the odd bit of music. 

Microsoft Surface Book review: Keyboard and Touchpad

The backlit keyboard is very comfortable to type on. It has a sensible layout and each generously-sized key has an excellent amount of travel. The keys were perhaps a little too densely packed for my liking, as I often found myself striking adjacent keys accidentally due to the small amount of space between them, but having used it to type this review, it wasn’t too frustrating overall. 

The white backlighting is particularly gorgeous. There are three brightness options available, but you can turn it off completely if you prefer. The backlight will also turn off automatically when the keys haven’t been used for a certain period of time. Striking a key turns them back on and the light fades in gradually, which is a nice touch. I also liked that you could toggle the Fn key on and off, much like the like Caps Lock button.

The glass laminated precision touchpad, however, deserves special mention, as it’s by far the best touchpad I’ve ever used on a Windows laptop. It feels incredibly smooth under your fingertips, with swipes and gestures all gliding across the surface with next to no resistance. Your swipes feel like they interact with your cursor directly, rather than with any lag, and it really makes using multi-touch gestures an absolute joy in Windows 10, as it becomes a far more seamless experience to swipe between windows.

Microsoft Surface Book review: Clipboard Mode and Surface Pen

Unlike the Surface 3 and Surface Pro 4, the Surface Book is a laptop first, tablet second. In fact, Microsoft doesn’t even describe it as a tablet when it’s been undocked from its keyboard base, instead referring to as a ‘Clipboard’. However, that’s not to say it’s not an excellent device in its secondary Clipboard form.

As the name implies, it’s an ideal partner for the included Surface Pen, as its 3:2 aspect ratio is much more akin to a sheet of A4 paper than a traditional 16:9 display, which makes it easy to jot down notes and annotate web pages. The stylus has 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, just like the one we loved from the Surface Pro 4.

Again, it has a clickable button on the top that automatically opens Microsoft OneNote for instant note-taking, or a double-click brings up a clipping of what’s currently onscreen so you can start annotating. It means the Surface Book truly does become a clipboard-esque tablet, and using it as a digital notepad quickly becomes second nature.

You’ll need to make sure the Surface Pen is correctly paired with the Surface Book through Bluetooth, as my review sample wasn’t out of the box. Without being paired, it’ll still work happily as a stylus to scribble away on the screen, but the eraser button won’t work.

The tips are user-replaceable, so you can swap it out for something thinner or thicker if you prefer to emulate different pens. Flip the pen over and you can use the flat end as a handy eraser for removing some of your scribbles. It uses slightly awkward AAAA (yes, quadruple A) batteries, but these aren’t too difficult to get hold of. You should get about a year’s worth of battery life out of a single AAAA battery.

When not in use, the Surface Pen attaches to the left side of the Clipboard display magnetically. It’s shocking how many devices that come with a stylus have nowhere to safely stow it away, but luckily the Surface Book’s magnet is so secure that you don’t need to be too concerned about it going missing

Surface Bookreview: Configurations

Like the Surface Pro 4, the Surface Book is available in different configurations. The entry-level model is equipped with a dual-core 2.4GHz Intel i5-6300U processor that can Turbo boost to 3GHz, has 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD storage and no dedicated GPU for £1,299. The next model up doubles the storage capacity and adds in a custom dedicated Nvidia GeForce GPU for £1,599.

The next model up swaps the processor for a dual-core 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6600U that can Turbo boost to 3.4GHz and has an RRP of £1,799. The top model, and the one I reviewed here, has the same i7 processor but doubles the storage and RAM to 512GB of 16GB respectively, and costs an eye-watering £2,249. All but the entry-level model include the dedicated graphics card.