Microsoft Surface Book 2 13.5-Inch PixelSense Display Notebook (Silver) - (Intel i7-8650U, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Graphics, Windows 10 Pro)

Ever since I saw the first Surface Book at PCWorld and got to play about with it's amazing keyboard and screen/tablet I have been wanting one of these. However my time with Macs has taught me one thing. You never be "that early adopter" that grabs the first generation version of a new product! This knowledge served me well as the original Surface Book was both an amazing machine and a bit of a glitch magnet. Now that the Surface book 2 is here. I went to see if it was finally ready for a two to three year date with meet the mother potential. The answer is a resounding yes and here's why.The refinements, tweaks and fixes that this product has received make it one of the most solid and stable laptops I have used. Having said this I have a caveat. Do not, under any circumstances, get the base model with 4gb of ram and a 7th generation intel i5. The base version is missing one of the key components that make this laptop the stand out powerhouse that it is, be you a student, developer, videographer or designer. It's missing the Discreet Graphics Processor! For me this makes the base 4gb version nothing more than a pretty lump of aluminium. The minimum version you should aim for is the version that I am reviewing here (the actual base version as far as I am concerned) the i7-8650 8th generation intel CPU with the 2gb 1050 gtx Nvidia cards, 8gb of memory and a 256gb SSD.Looks and Practicality=================The first thing that strikes you about the Surface Book 2 is the sleek lines and the unique hinge design that was pioneered on the original version. This is also where you will find the first improvement in the new model. The hinge, while looking identical to the last one and being functionally identical, is a lot stiffer. This was done to reduce the wobble problem when using the device on an actual lap or other soft surface. This makes typing on the Surface Book a more pleasant experience than it's predecessor which tended to have a bit of hinge wobble if you typed aggressively. It also allows for a better pen experience with the tablet section docked in a normal laptop configuration. The ports have also been updated with the addition of 2 usb type 3 ports and an SD card slot on the left of the machine and a usb type C port with the surface magnetic power/docker port on the right. The USB C port is unfortunately not a thunderbolt port so no external GPU support is present. For creatives the full sized SD slot will more than make up for this however but, it is an oversite that I am annoyingly sure will be sorted in the next update to the surface book line.One of the unique selling points of the Surface Book (hereafter referred to as just the SB for the original model or the SB2 for the current one) was that you can detach the screen, which then works exactly as you would expect a tablet to work. The difference being that the SB2 in tablet mode still sports a fanless i7-8650 (13.5 inch model) as the tablet is where the processor resides along with a small battery that allows the unit to function at full capacity for around 1.5 to 3 hours depending on what load you put on it. Photoshop will drain the battery in around 2 hours while watching movies and light web surfing will get you a comfortable 3 hours of life in tablet mode.The SB2 has three distinct modes of operation which is identical to the original SB.1. Docked laptop mode where the screen is docked facing the keyboard and everything functions as you would expect a high quality laptop to do.2. Marquee mode, where you can undock the tablet screen, flip it 180 degrees then re-dock it to the keyboard base. In this mode the surface has all the benefits of being in laptop configuration but, you can flip the machine around and use it as either an artist tablet for serious photo editing, video editing and even presentations etc. etc.3. Tablet mode as discussed above. With the screen completely free of the base and keyboard.Performance==========So what about performance I hear you cry. Well let me tell you, with no reservations, the surface book performance is an absolute joy to behold. It powers through even the most intense tasks you can throw at it without batting an eyelid. The 13.5 inch model with the i7, 256gb ssd, 8gb of ram and 2gb 1050 gpu is geared towards video editing, light gaming at around the 1080p mark and tasks like software development, design and photo editing. The fanless cpu doesn't tend to throttle much except under extreme loads, like trying to play a game like Titanfall 2 at 4k, and there is a very quiet fan for the gpu that you'll rarely notice it in actual use. In practice I didn't notice it throttle at all though, when using monitoring software I could see it occasionally throttle. It is very telling that this throttling was not noticeable in any way. Clearly Microsoft have made huge strides in cooling for this new SB model.Battery======This brings us finally onto battery life. For a laptop you can have all the power in the world but it isn't going to do you any good if you're tethered to a wall socket! The original SB had about 10 to 12 hours of battery life in practical use but, didn't have a GPU to contend with so you'd expect the SB2 to have a shorter battery life than that. Wouldn't you?. Well a pleasant and unexpected suprise is that the new SB2 actually come in at around the same real world 10 to 12 hours of reasonable usage. With heavy usage like editing a 4k video we get around the 4 hour mark and the same If you go crazy on games that max out the GPU and CPU. Microsoft rates the SB2 for 17 hours of battery life but, these numbers are based on the old video loop test that has been recorded as the daily useage of no-one ever!! So in practice, with me coding, compiling, web surfing, light design work and watching youtube etc. etc. The SB2 lasts a comfortable 10 hours or more. This is more than enough for a full days productive work and I've yet to feel the need to drag a charger anywhere with me. Elevating my level of Smug, when at a costa or starbucks, to near Mac-book pro owner levels. You never go full reta...er Macbook Pro owner though so be careful with that!Conclusion=========My conclusion (I may update this review a month or so from now if anything changes) is that, if you can afford the price which right now is a whopping 360 pounds cheaper than it ought to be (on Amazon oddly not Microsoft's own site), then I would snap this model up before someone realises what a bargain it is. This is the sweet spot model unless you absolutely need 16gb of memory. I cheaply upgraded the 256gb SSD with the addition of a 200GB microsd and adapter card that I just slotted into the machine and was ready to go. You can happily run anything from office to games from the external storage with no issues. Leaving the internal SSD for the os, paging caches etc. etc. This allows the machine to run like a dream. Never having to clutter up the internal drive.On a final note. If you absolutely need something that can be used as an actual serious gaming rig (I kid you not) and you can wait a few months. You could instead wait for the 15 inch SB2 with the 6gb 1060 GTX card. This will comfortably do 4k gaming but, you'll pay a lot more for it. You also need to remember that a 15 inch laptop can be a real dog to lug about on a daily basis. These machines are carved from solid blocks of metal like the Mac-Books from Apple and I would only recommend you get the 15 inch if you really need a bigger screen and the extra GPU power. If not then what are you waiting for! Grab this before it's gone and back at it's original 1999 price!

Bought it mostly for VR. It's ok-ish, even though it is advertised as a full 90Hz Windows Mixed Reality machine, sometimes it lags quite badly in VR mode. Don't get me wrong, I like this machine a lot, but it is a bit underpowered (considering the price) for some tasks. Also a bit heavier than I would like. I'd probably think about a new Razer Blade if I had to take this decision again. Happy overall.

I have been using the Surface Book 2 for about four months and I can't think of any other device that would allow me to work as flexibly as I do with this computer. Every day I use for hours both as a laptop and a pen driven tablet. I don't need it for gaming, but opted for the entry i7 version to help future-proof my purchase. Not surprisingly I'm overflowing with capacity and spare performance! Highlights:- genuine dual use device as a powerful laptop and a tablet. Detaching the screen from the keyboard for me is always easy - hold the button and it works. Swapping the screen round to use in 'presentation' mode always gets peoples' attention, but then is hugely easy to show a screen or slide show, then annotate the content as well as showing the slides. Surprisingly better to use in this way than 10 inches further back behind a keyboard, I'm not sure why.- shifting to Windows tablet mode is automatic, sensible, seamless and convenient.- inputting text in tablet mode is a little more difficult than with a keyboard (not surprisingly). However I've found that the handwriting recognition is adequate for short sentences, and I now probably prefer it to any of the onscreen keyboard options. Most of my annotation remains handwritten on screens or on documents (using a tool like Drawboard PDF).- battery life is good - Clearly shorter when using the tablet on its own, but I have yet to run short, and simple to charge both sides of the device from the same cable and connector. I usually choose to select "battery saver mode" when using the tablet which is an easy selection from the battery icon on the windows taskbar - and seems to be effective in helping the battery last even longer.- integration with MS Office - particularly pen-driven OneNote - is spectacular. Not only are all my handwritten notes now in OneNote (rather than Moleskin notebooks), but I can copy, reorganise and insert new text or drawings wherever I need to. I can also search on handwritten text, which understandably will make better sense of neater handwriting than pure scribble - but it does work. Incredibly it also finds text written in photographs! (Obviously also stored to the cloud and accessible from other devices as an extra advantage.)- embedding content into MS Office tools is easy. I now routinely take photos of workshop output or other documents and paste them into OneNote or Powerpoint. It's easy to use either camera on the Surface Book 2.- I also frequently share scribbled sketches with co-workers on the Surface Screen instead of using a whiteboard or a flipchart, which I find more engaging and has the advantage of retaining all the versions of words we've written down.- Build quality of the device itself is excellent. The magnesium body feels high quality and solid. The hinge looks idiosyncratic, but does its job well and solidly locks the screen in place without any wobble. (I take is as a compliment when people think I'm using a Mac, because the Macbook is its obvious competitor, and certainly for build quality I think they are equivalent).- Screen is clear, my 13" is the right compromise for my use, and the 3x2 ratio is most useful for documents moving vertically whilst being perfectly good for video. The keyboard feels high quality too, comfortable and light. The trackpad is not as huge as the Apple's but feels high quality and sensitive for mouse movement and clicking.- I've read lots about the deficiency of omitting the thunderbolt connector - it's not an issue for me. The range offered is more than adequate for my needs.- The surface pen is essential, convenient and comfortable. Getting used to using the side button on the pen makes it more useful. I chose to buy an MS arc mouse, which is both handily flat and works amazing well using the finger driven track pad on its top edge as well functioning as a normal mouse clicker. This particularly helps when scrolling through documents.- very little else to say other than this Surface Book has surpassed my expectations in almost every way. It has changed the way I work and is now an essential part of my daily interaction with colleagues and clients. Yes it's expensive, and I could get a laptop much cheaper, or a mac at about the same price, but neither would give me the combination of quality, versatility and cachet that this machine offers. As a very occasional reviewer, it takes something special for me to share opinions online, but I've felt motivated to do so for this laptop. And suffice to say I've not regretted my purchase for a second.

As a laptop, the battery life is fantastic. Use as a tablet, then it will have to be charged several times a day.The feel of the laptop is very good and has an excellent keyboard. Also, it has a very good screen. I decided to go for the Book 2 as opposed to the Surface Pro as it is the main computer for our household and has more ports and a larger screen. Yet, it is still very portable and easy to take on holidays. As long as you configure the mouse to your own set-up, which took several days to master, it works very well. Overall, I am very pleased with my purchase.