The Microsoft Surface Book starts at $1,499 and is aimed at those who purchase high-end laptops like the Apple MacBook Pro and HP Spectre x360.
The Surface Book has Core i7 or i5 power and an Nvidia GeForce GPU for engineering, gaming, manufacturing, and scientific tasks. It's crazy light at 1.6 pounds, and has a quality feel that's apparent in the short time we've had with it.
When you first pick it up, the Surface Book has a lot in common with the Apple MacBook Pro and the Google Chromebook Pixel. All three systems are thin but have a solid feel. The 13.5-inch screen is as bright and clear as you'd expect from a flagship product. Tapping the responsive screen is easy to do in laptop mode or the other modes it supports. The chiclet-style keyboard has a good feel, and has 1.6mm of travel to keep touch typists happy. The large 5-point touchpad is likewise responsive and easy to use.
The laptop is fairly light on its own, but all you need to do is push an eject button on the keyboard, and the screen transforms into a tablet. There is a haptic buzz and status light to let you know the tablet is ready to detach. The latch is powered, so it won't come loose inadvertently like it might with a magnetic or mechanical one. The process only takes a second or two, and once you reseat the screen on the base, it automatically latches again in that position. You can reverse the screen, so it faces outward, protecting the keyboard. It's a much thinner and sophisticated version of the latch and usage model pioneered in the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix, and it seems sturdy and well engineered at the same time.
Befitting a premium tablet, the system comes with one of the latest generation Intel Core processors and Nvidia GeForce graphics. The GPU is located in the base of the system, so it is unavailable when the system is in tablet mode, unless you flip the screen around and clip it back onto the base. The latching mechanism has a wide electrical connector, no doubt PCIe-based to facilitate communication between the GPU and the rest of the system. You'll need to keep the base connected if you're gaming or otherwise using the GPU for calculations. Adobe Creative Cloud has been updated to detect the presence of the GPU, and it can manage its own processes if you detach the base in the middle of a work session. I'd still save my work before doing so, though.
The ports are on the base, including full-sized USB 3.0, SD card reader, and the docking connector for the base station that the Surface Book shares with the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. Microsoft eliminated the ports from the tablet portion in order to save z-height (aka thickness).
The Microsoft Surface Book looks to be a promising competitor to the other high-end laptops and tablets in an increasingly crowded space. It will appeal to design-forward users as well as those who don't want to leave any power behind when they travel.
The Surface Book arrives on Oct. 26 starting at $1,499 and Microsoft is accepting pre-orders now. Stay tuned for a full review.