The Surface Book 2 is really an amazing machine! Well worth the investment if you use your computer for more than surfing the web. Break free of the desk and desk top with all the computing power you need for 95% of what you do. Just buy it, you’ll feel guilty for spending the money, but only till you start to use it and realize you should have done this sooner. File and photos are handled easily, Microsoft One Drive cloud service is a great built in feature that you will come to love quickly, if you haven’t been using the cloud for your current work files. Then hook up a WD my book drive to permanently store all your files. It handles photoshop cs6 just fine for small quick projects, but it’s a little hard to use for anything a little more involved without a mouse and more screen real estate. Making small video clips for you tube is a little awkward, but not to bad. I started with a Surface Pro and wanted a little more screen and laptop ability and this is perfect. Actually having both the SP i5 8g and this SB i5 8g is a great combo for work if the budget allows. I think I would recommend the Surface Book 2 over the Pro if you had to choose, it just has a couple more features that make it a little more useful. And the larger screen is nice to have. I have been using the SP for 6 weeks and SB for about a month, and they have been flawless. The screens are amazing and both keyboards feel really good to type on. They both fit their purpose perfectly. Coming from only a desk top and an Android tablet, this is the perfect marriage of mobile, speed, size, and Windows. In fact, while dealing with my vendors, its hard watching someone fire up a $500 HP laptop waiting for it to wake up, then trying to open a pdf I emailed them, and I’m sitting there, like we just wasted 5 mins for nothing, and then for some reason the pfd still can’t open… ahhh I’m thinking please buy a SB before I come back! It might feel a little small in the store when your shopping for the SP12.5 or SB13.5’’ but once you start to use it and the trackpad, it’s really just right, it keeps you focused on the current task and I think actually made my computing faster then my old giant 27’’ monitor with windows open all over the place. The screen looks great and for some reason is really easy on the eyes, even when your doing long stents on the Surfaces. Detaching the screen has come in handy several times, and the cool factor of your whole i5 computer 13.5’’ tablet, in your hands weighing almost nothing is nice. And the thirty dollar pens work great with both, no need to spend a hondo on one. You will also come to love One Note and 3d Paint for getting work done. I am surprised at all I have been missing with only a desktop from Win10, amazing features that make you more productive. These devices have really helped me and my company and that’s why I have written these reviews. If they last 4-5 years then the value will be great. The SB has a little bit of the “coil whine” sometimes when your sitting in a “perfectly” quite room, but you really cant fault it as a negative. Battery life on the SP is really really good, after all day tasks still 30% left! The battery on the SBook2 seams ok. With the extra battery capacity and only a little larger screen it really seams like it should last a lot longer. I unplug from 100% full and a hour latter I’m down to 70%, then I drop about 20% an hour, surfing the web and typing word docs. I would also recommend an Anker USB network adaptor, not so much for speed but to keep GB’s of radio radiation from your body. Over the course of a month I racked up 30gb of wifi data on my SP, and that’s sitting right over mommy and daddy parts while its transmitting. After an hour of syncing photos holding my Surface Pro my one hand actually was a little tingly. Just a fyi.

This 2-in-1 laptop meets all of its specifications and advertising claims with a high degree of workmanship. This earns it 4 stars. As a potential buyer, I believe you can look at the advertising copy and draw a conclusion that will be supported by your experience when you see and use the laptop. FYI: Earning 5 stars is not easy. To earn 5 stars, a product must deliver value and features in excess of what one should expect. At the price point of the Surface Book 2, that did not happen. Having said that, there is plenty to know that isn't specified. I will try to add some knowledge, at least about the 13.5 inch, basic model that I bought. 1. Get the 256 GB memory. I bought the 128, cause I was told an I7 processor was bundled with 256. That isn't true, BestBuy, so I recommend the I5 with 256 GB. 2. The claimed battery life of 17 hours is with the tablet attached to the keyboard. Tablet and keyboard have separate batteries. Battery life is 4.5 hours (claimed) with tablet detached from keyboard. It may be less in practice. Be sure to use the low battery settings as soon as you detach the tablet, so you extend battery life. Microsoft: Add some more battery to the tablet. 3. The tablet weighs 1.6 lbs. That is 0.1 lb. less than the Pro model, and with a larger screen. While that is impressive, it translates to short battery life on tablet mode. 4. The squared off edges of the tablet make it uncomfortable to hold. Rounded edges are usually standard on tablets. 5. The touchscreen works as good as any I've ever used, including Apple. The image quality is as good as Apple Retina. 6. The wireless favors 2.4 GHz, even when a 5 GHz signal is available with a 3X faster speed link. That may be because 5 GHz is always weaker than 2.4 GHz, unless you stand under the access point. I set the wireless adapter to 5 GHz only, and tripled my speed. I am not happy with this workaround, because 5 GHz is often not available. Microsoft: Work on this issue! 7. Recharge of the batteries is slow. The supplied brick is 44 W, and that is weak for a laptop. A 60 W charger would be much faster, at least up to 80% charge. 8. Microsoft has not written a user manual for this 2-in-1. Come on guys! Write a user manual. You can add it to the image for $0.00.

I love my surface book. It isn't perfect but it is amazing. I will tell you how I use my surface book to hopefully help show you how one can truly enjoy benefits of this device. I am an engineer. I review prints daily (my own and others) in pdf format. I use the surface pen, surface dial, surface dock and Bluebeam. This allows me to have three different views of the same drawing set and markup the one on my surface screen. I can then email the drawings to the other engineer or use it to start making CAD changes. I am using the base model device and it is enough for everything I do including MicroStation (CAD, no 3d drawings). The next way I use it is to take it to meetings and take all of my notes in OneNote. I tend to do better taking notes by hand and so I write all of my notes with the surface pen. The advantage with this is that OneNote can read my handwriting and search it in the search bar. That feature has saved me several times. The next way I use my surface is remote meetings. Sometimes when a tech calls me from the field and asks me questions I will see if they can do a quick webex and I pull my my pdf and draw out what they are describing on the existing prints. This has saved loads of time from not understading each other (I have used this method with other engineers in different loacations as well). The last is field markups. I take this out to the field with my drawings and markup the drawings: In situation 1 I go out to an existing site that is needs a new piece of equipment added. I mark up of the drawings and many times I end up taking a picture and inserting the picture into the pdf drawing for reference later or if the field install is completely different than the document of record I will just start drawing on the picture to show the changes I want that I can then take back and create engineering prints with. SItuation 2 is after a job is complete going out and marking up construction changes or variances. It is so much easier than carrying around a D size drawing (32" x 22"). The field is where the surface book isn't perfect. I can't charge it off of small battery packs without the base attached which makes it heavier. But for the rest of my work this is the perfect device. One suggestion, spring for more memory if it all possible. I get by with my 128GB but just barely I had to go through and purge any program or document file I wasn't using to give myself room after awhile. Pros: detachable pen keyboard screen size cons: no USB port on the tablet side to charge Tablet only battery Overall: I love it and I might add a surface Go to my bag for the field now that that exists but this is definitely my powerhouse and works to do my complete line of work.

Very aesthetically pleasing laptop that had all the features I wanted. Had I waited one more week I could have gotten the 256 GB model for the regular price of the 128, and that’s my only real regret so far. The keyboard has a solid feel to it in comparison to cheaper laptops and I’ve found that to be a joy to use. The backlighting on the keyboard is a little strange in that when you turn on the lights it can almost wash out the look of the character causing the key to be even harder to read. Software updates were difficult to apply right out of the box. I had to search for answers because it wouldn’t install an update on its own. You’ll have to learn how to activate the admin profile and then change update settings. There’s threads online for how to do this and it’s easy enough, just not intuitive if you don’t have instructions. It seemed like this was a common occurrence for the Surface Book and Surface Pro models. With internet help, my Book is now fully up to date. I recommend an external hard drive to everyone for backups but especially for those with the 128 GB model. Old versions of Windows take up 32 GB of storage leaving little room for anything else. You can delete old versions of Windows, but your recovery safety net will be gone. Create frequent backups and recovery points to get around losing the old versions of Windows. The only real issue I still have with this laptop is likely software related. When on battery power, the top row of pixels flicker; only the top one and never when plugged in. Not very noticeable if that row is dark, but throw something bright in that region and it’ll be a small strobe light. What’s strange is if you move the mouse the flicker stops and when you stop touching the mouse the flicker comes back. That screams software and not hardware to me. I’ve had the screen flash in protest when rotating the screen from landscape to portrait once while in tablet mode, but I don’t use that mode much so it won’t be a long term problem. I would have given this laptop 5 stars had the screen been perfect, but these flashes seem like a patch could solve them so a 4 seems more appropriate.

Excellent laptop so far. The keyboard has a great feel to it with decent force required and doesn’t feel cheap. There’s backlighting on the keys, but in the low setting, it washes out the keys making them even harder to read. It would be nice to have a number pad on the side, but it would have crowded the rest of the keyboard, so I’m okay with the way it is. The trackpad is very responsive and clicking the pad is much nicer on this model than on several other laptops I’ve tried. I haven’t found a setting for scroll on the right hand side, but it works with gestures so two fingers allows me to scroll. Very fast hard drive and processor, and electrically efficient making the battery seem to last forever. I haven’t run it all day to see how long it can last, but I would say in the real world it’s more than 8 hours with the keyboard. The screen is very fine and vibrant, only bested by widescreen 4K OLED displays. The issue I have with the display seems to be software related. When running on battery, the row of pixels closest to the camera flickers. If I move my mouse, the flickering stops, but as soon as I rest the mouse, the flicker returns. When the laptop is plugged in, again, no flicker problem. Microsoft should issue a patch to solve this as many people have reported it and every Surface Book 2 seems to have this issue. Another issue I ran into was while setting up the laptop. It would not update the software. I had to find an article online about how to unhide the admin account so I could change the update settings before it would apply any patches. I can see why users would get frustrated and return these if they couldn’t figure all of that out. I got it eventually, but I was frustrated while doing it. Overall, love the laptop and it’s worthy of 5 stars, but the flicker should be solved, so 4 feels more fitting. My only regret was the price. I picked this up for $1100 and a week later the 256 GB model dropped down to $1200. I would have paid the extra $100 for double the memory, but I had already set the laptop up and got it updated, which was a pain.

I bought this lap top for my college student son.He was using a Mac Pro for his first year of college that we leased through school .When he changed colleges I had to now purchase a lap top for him.I went to the store will all intentions of buying him a Macbook Pro as he used this in the past,has an iPhone and is a big fan of Apple as most of his generation is. After seeing the MS Surface Book in the store and speaking with someone there I was really impressed with some of its features .The price point was slightly cheaper than Apple, but I was willing to pay the price of the Mac Book Pro anyway because I wanted a good product that lasted. After going back and forth in my mind and going back home and doing some research, I chose to purchase the MS Surface book.Best decision ever! My son absolutely loves it! The tablet feature is Fantastic, it is comfortable to use and is well equipped for what he needs for his school work. It is a great choice! DON'T get hung up on names as I was with Apple..thinking because it is so popular it is a better product....it's actually not. Although Apple makes a great phone they are not #1 in the computer industry. Microsoft is a far better product when it comes to computers.I am very happy with my purchase and more importantly my son who I thought for sure wouldn't be impressed ,LOVES it!! My only complaint is I had to purchase MS WORD..u would think for $1500 MS would already have that program included on their computers.

This is by far the best laptop that I have ever owned. Every time I open this laptop, I admire how beautiful it is. Microsoft did an excellent job in creating this laptop. Before buying this laptop, there were some things that I was weary about: 1.) The laptop does not close all the way. After owning this laptop for over a month I can say this has not bothered me one bit. 2.) The laptop is 4.2 ounces, compared to the 2.0-ounce laptops of this size. I thought this laptop was a little heavy for its size, but after carrying this laptop around in my backpack the weight does not bother me at all. The extra 2 ounces is worth the amazing 17-hour battery life. The overall quality of this laptop feels sturdy. The tactile keyboard is amazing to type on, the keys are firm and bounce back up quickly. The resolution on the screen is amazing, 2000 x 3000, which is not quite 4K but is still very nice for online reading. You cannot find a laptop with this high of resolution at $1,149.00. There were a lot of complaints about the price of this laptop, but I feel the price is justified because Apple charges just about the same price for one of their products. Plus, there is not product out there that has a detachable screen. Which I absolutely love. One thing that I would recommend for Microsoft is to increase the screen rate from 60hz to 120hz, I make this recommendation so that writing with the Pen feels more natural, there is somewhat of a delay with the Pen when writing fast, but not something that bothers me all that much. Overall this is a fantastic product.

I bought this as a replacement to my obsolete work laptop and it's definitely been an eye catcher from day one. I needed something with the latest technology and components, promoted creative ways to make presentations have a bit more interactivity and flair, and could get me through a full day without needing to be charged within five hours or less. This Surface Book 2 checked all of those boxes, opening up so many possibilities for the use of a modern laptop, tablet, or convertible--all in one package while delivering impressive performance, a great screen, productivity options, and so much more. The things I like about this laptop after a few weeks of use: -Fantastic screen (high resolution, clarity, and color) -Responsive, multi-touch screen -Laptop, tablet, or convertible options -Battery life (lasts for more than two days without needing a charge) -Comfortable keyboard and typing experience -Lightweight design -Very fast boot times -Cameras are pretty good Things I dislike... -Limited ports -USB-C or USB dongles needed for basic HDMI, VGA, and other common ports -Higher options get very, very expensive If you're in the market for something that is packed with features, extra long battery life, transformation options from laptop to tablet, want to use a stylus for presentations, note taking, or drawing, and something that is very portable with a nice finish, this computer will surely meet all of your computer needs.