Surface Book 2 first impression: The engineering marvel

Surface Book 2 has a 4K display

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Microsoft Surface Book 2, Microsoft Laptop First Impression

The Microsoft Surface Book 2 is the latest flagship laptop with powerful internals and a one of a kind design. The Surface Book 2 has a design element, which is not usually seen on a standard laptop. Here is our first impression of the Microsoft Surface Book 2.

 

Design

Design

The design is the major highlight of the laptop. The notebook has a premium design with an aluminium unibody finish along with a screw-less design, which does look clean. The surface Book 2 is easily one of the best looking Windows laptops that is available in the India market.

The Surface Book 2 can also be called as an engineering marvel, as it has a user replaceable bottom casing with full-size keypad, trackpad, and a dedicated Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU. To remove the top portion of the laptop (a user has to press a dedicated button to release the display and then lift up with the display panel with minimal pressure).

The display is user detachable and can be mounted in opposite to offer View Mode, where one can use the laptop by folding down the keypad upside down to get that full GPU power. The computer still provides full-size dual USB-A ports, SD card slot, and a Thunderbolt port via USB type-C, which can be used to connect the Surface Book 2 to an external monitor by plug and play method.

Under the hood
 

Under the hood

The Surface Book 2 from Microsoft comes in different CPU, GPU, and storage combination. The one which we tested out is the 15-inch model with 4K display (top of the line model).

The laptop has a 15-inch PixelSense Display with a resolution of 3240 x 2160px resolution offering a decent 260 ppi with a contrast ratio of 1600:1 with ten multi-touch input.

The laptop is powered by the 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8650U CPU with a clock speed of up to 4.2 GHz on Turbo Boost along with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB PCIe based storage (non-user expandable). The Graphical tasks are being handled by the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 G GB GPU (which is located on the base mount).

Initial impression

Initial impression

The laptop weighs at 2 KG (including the base keyboard + GPU module), and the tablet weighs at 817 grams, which is excellent for a device with a 15-inch display and laptop class specifications.

The 4K IPS LCD panel on the Surface Book 2 is sharp and is one of the sharpest displays that we have seen on the notebook with 15-inch screen size. As the Windows 10 OS powers the notebook, the overall user-interface was very similar to any other laptop with Windows 10 OS, and the support for touch input.

Though this is a 2-in-laptop, the Surface Book 2 can run legacy Windows applications as well as the modern Windows apps from the Windows App Store. In the short time that we spent with the device, the overall response from the keyboard and trackpad is really overwhelming and even typing on the Microsoft Surface Book 2 feels natural.

All-in-all, the laptop maintains the standard of a premium device, and it also serves as a power-user without any compromise.

Surface Pen and Surface Dial

Surface Pen and Surface Dial

If you are planning to get a Surface Book 2, then getting a Surface Pen and a Surface Dial will elevate the overall user experience to the next level. The Surface Pen and the Surface Dial are the two accessories, that can work across the Surface range of devices.

If you are an illustrator or a designer, or even a simple person who sketches a lot, then the Surface Pen will help you to transform your laptop screen into a digital canvas and the response time between the laptop and the pen is very negligible, which will add up in your productivity period.

Based on our first impression, the Surface Pen and the Surface Dial have impressive build quality. Did we say that the Surface Pen does attach to the Surface Book 2 so that you don't have to carry a separate case for the same? Yes, it the magnetic portion of the Surface Pen does attach to the side of the Surface Book 2.

Conclusion

Conclusion

The Surface Book 2 is hands down, the best looking and the most premium Windows machine and we do not doubt concerning that. However, we will reserve our thoughts on the performance of the device, which will be covered in the full review of the Surface Book 2.

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