Microsoft Surface Book 2 in a nutshell, really. It’s a powerful laptop that can turn its hand to pretty much anything you care to think of. Most of the time you’ll be using it as a regular notebook, but you can also detach the screen and use it as a large tablet, you can reverse-dock the screen into the keyboard so you can use it like a clipboard and it’s compatible with the (optional) Surface Pen so you can jot down notes and sketch out ideas, too. This is one laptop I have been looking forward to testing out and one I have not been let down with.
Of course, you’ll pay dearly for all of the aforementioned accolades, which we’d say is well worth it for the creative pros (or anyone who’s rich enough) out there that can swing it. The price is steep for the best 2-in-1 laptop to date, but remember you’re getting the cream of the crop in 2-in-1 laptop design by the folks that defined the category.
The Microsoft Surface Book 2, just like the generation, is a laptop possessed of a unique set of capabilities. It’s fast and powerful enough to game on, you can comfortably run any application you care to think of on it and the display is good enough for professional-level photo editing, illustration and video editing. You can even sketch and take notes on the screen if you really want to.
If you need all these things, the 15in Surface Book 2 is currently unmatched. It’s essentially all the power of a desktop PC squeezed into a package you can comfortably carry around with you and even the £1,999 model gives you more for your money than the equivalent MacBook Pro.
That’s not to say it’s a laptop that will suit everyone, though. Not a bit of it. The £2,000 price for the Nvidia-equipped base model is still an awful lot of cash to pay for any laptop and if you don’t want to game, there are better options than the £1,499 Core i5 Surface Book, notably the HP Spectre X360 or the aforementioned MacBook Pro 13. For all-out power and sheer do-it-all might, however, there isn’t anything to touch the Core i7 Microsoft Surface Book 2.
Good
Crazy long battery life
Massively powerful
Lightweight yet large tablet
Excellent cooling
Bad
No up-firing base speakers
Small trackpad
Very pricey
No Surface Pen included
Spec
Configuration for the Microsoft Surface Book 2 (15-inch) configuration reviewed:
CPU: 1.9GHz Intel Core i7-8650U (quad-core, 8MB cache, up to 4.2GHz with Turbo Boost)
Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620; Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5 VRAM)
RAM: 16GB LPDDR3 (1866Mhz)
Screen: 15-inch, 3,240 x 2,160 (260 ppi) PixelSense display (3:2 aspect ratio; 1600:1 contrast ratio)
Storage: 1TB PCIe 3.0 SSD
Ports: 2 x USB 3.1, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C, 2 x Surface Connect, SD card reader, 3.5mm audio jack
Connectivity: 802.11ac 2 x 2 MIMO Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, Xbox Wireless
Camera: Windows 8MP rear-facing autofocus camera (1080p), 5MP front-facing Hello face-authentication camera (1080p HD)
Weight: 4.2 pounds (1.9kg) with keyboard base
Size: 13.5 x 9.87 x 0.568 ~ 0.90 inches (343 x 251 x 15 ~ 23mm; W x D x H)
