I have just bought myself a new laptop, but it is not just any laptop it is a Microsoft Surface Book
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I think this is probably the first time I have bought myself a top of the range laptop and after a few days of use I am loving it.
The Surface Book is the latest in Microsoft’s Surface line of tablets but the first to feature a keyboard and be more like a traditional laptop. The keyboard is detachable from the keyboard so you can use the Surface Book like a tablet.
As it is a top of the range laptop, it was not cheap, so if price is a significant factor in your laptop choice this is not the machine for you. Microsoft are trying to compete with Apple’s Macbook range.
So what did I get for my money:
- Windows 10 Pro
- 16Gb RAM
- 512Gb SSD (Formatted Size nearer 474Gb)
- 6th Generation Intel Core i7 Processor
- Surface Pen
- 13.5-inch touch screen
I have only had the device for a few days but these are my thoughts so far. My primary reason for buying this is for doing development work with Visual Studio and SQL Server.
I really like the Surface Pen. This is a feature that I didn’t think I would use much. The Pen connects via bluetooth and allows interaction with the touch screen. The pressure sensitive screen allows all sort of touch actions to be performed.
I especially like the choice of keyboards that are offered when the physical keyboard is detached. You can have either a on screen keyboard which you can type with pen or fingers, an on screen keyboard that splits in half or you can write with the pen. This is an amazing feature. My handwriting is not good but most of the time it understands my scrawl. With this option you can hand write a tweet or fill in a form on a webpage. For speed I would not recommend this form of input for large amounts of text, but for browsing the web of when you are just clicking on links it is great.
Windows Hello – I can unlock windows just by looking at my screen. How cool is that! It was really easy to setup, it just takes a photo of your face and next time you login all you need to do it look at the screen. Note if you are working in tablet mode, make sure the tablet is the correct way up.
It’s not all brilliant though. Detaching the screen is fiddly and sometimes takes a few moments to do. A few times I have felt I needed another hand but I am sure the more I do this the easier I will find it to do.
Battery life isn’t great especially when running off the tablet only. This is due to the machine having two batteries, one in the base and one in the screen so with keyboard attached you have much longer use times. Actually I am finding the battery is lasting longer now that I have used it for a few days.
The screen has a very high resolution 3000 x 2000 but using clever zooming technology everything is still readable and not tiny. However I use Remote Desktop a lot and this caused me a problem. When RDPing the remote session used the host screen resolution which made everything tiny on my servers. The solution to this can be found on SuperUser and involved using Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection Manager, a cool bit of software for managing multiple RDP sessions. This is actually an improvement on the way I usually work, but until I found the answer this was annoying.
Another minor annoyance with the keyboard is that you can’t press Ctrl-Alt-Del with one hand. Normally this isn’t a requirement but if the screen locks while I have my son on my lap I am stuck, but I won’t blame the surface book for this.
When I got my Surface Book I was also given a Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter. I am not a fan of this bit of tech as I can’t get it to work. I briefly got my old laptop to connect but my Surface Book keeps telling me NO!
Overall I like the Surface Book. It is certainly the nicest laptop I have ever used. Now that I have the docking station I can connect two monitors, have a wired internet connection and it becomes a proper work horse. What does everyone else think? Better than Apple’s range of laptops?
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