Customer Ratings & Reviews

Worst purchase EVER! I had it for less than a year and it stopped working! I took it in to the geek squad and was told that it has a defective hard drive and they can not repair it!

I love this computer because it has something for everyone in our household. For the gamer in our home, high speed and picture quality take the experience to the right level. Both the keyboard and the screen/tablet became hot while gaming. For the art enthusiast in our home, having front and rear facing cameras as well as Paint 3D and 3D viewer to assist in photo editing, the touch screen surface with pen option makes this a nice tool to get creative with. I like the quality of the pictures I took of myself. They seem to be in matte format and are rather flattering. Playing videos and listening to music were of good quality. For my budding architect, we downloaded Autocad LT and let the building take off. The processing speed seems to be quite reactive to the time the screen gets touched. We didn’t experience any lag, at least none we could notice which to us translates into no lag. The surface comes with two batteries, one in the keyboard and one in the tablet/screen. Naturally something needs to continue to power the tablet once its been ejected. Yes, there’s an eject button on the keyboard so you may want to make those button happy aware that once that button is pressed it will release the tablet/screen from the keyboard and will be loose and needs to be removed or snapped back on. The keyboard lights up which is a fav feature of mine in any computer. I tend to burn the midnight oil but don’t like to work with overhead lights, so being able to see my keyboard is important. The keyboard has 3 levels of light intensity. The screen also can be brightened easily with tapping the screen. Like I said, the surface is very reactive. Almost like it knows what I plan to do before I do it. The computer stays cool during normal use but under gaming conditions gets hot. The battery seemed to last quite a bit when using software other than gaming and/or surfing the internet. The charger has a slim rectangular magnetic feature which attaches and detached easily from its port. I like the design of the surface as it doesn’t weigh down heavily on my lap.

Sorry I bought it no keyboard lights I bought it for travel , It was too heavy and I can’t see the keyboard!

Microsoft's Surface Book line-up probably doesn't need much introduction now that it's on its third iteration. But just-in-case: the Surface Book is Microsoft's take on a convertible (or 2-in-1) laptop that can operate like a traditional laptop or in a tablet-like form. Unlike devices in this category from other companies, Microsoft does not rely on hinge tricks to flip the screen into the tablet-like mode - instead, the entire screen can be detached and used as a tablet, or turned around and reattached to the keyboard "base." Along with a touchpad and large battery that greatly increases battery life while connected, the "base" also houses a reasonably powerful (by laptop standards) Nvidia GPU. I received a 15-inch Surface Book 3 with 16 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD to review as part of the Best Buy Tech Insider Network program. Reviewers in this invitation-only program are provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews. While I did not purchase it at retail, the computer I received for review should be fully representative of a retail unit. This review is my own opinion of the Surface Book 3. Out of the box, the fit and finish of my Surface Book 3 unit were all good - just as I'd expect within the premium laptop market segment. The unique hinge design makes it a bit bulkier when closed than a traditional laptop, and there's definitely more weight in the screen than for a traditional laptop. However, it's also very well balanced, and when using it on my lap, I never notice an awkward weight distribution. Only when picking it up to move it or readjust position can I tell it's not a normal laptop. It's a far cry from other tablet + keyboard dock combinations I've used that were prone to tipping backword due to the tablet weight. They keyboard and trackpad work very well (though I must say that I still find Apple's trackpads with Force Touch/haptic feedback to be the best). The "PixelSense" screen looks great. The Surface Books feature a 3:2 aspect ratio - not quite the regular widescreen aspect ratio, but close to the 16:10 ratio found on some competing laptops. When detached and standing alone, the 15 inch screen really does seem very large (maybe even ungainly) for a tablet. The front-facing camera in the display supports Windows Hello facial recognition for authentication. This is the first computer I've used with support for this, and the speed and reliability of this system has seemed very good so far. (I have an iPhone Xs, and I'd say it has set my expectations in this regard pretty high.) Because the Surface Book 3's CPU - and CPU cooling system - must reside in the tablet-like screen, Microsoft chose a 10th generation Intel Core i7 CPU that is more power efficient but also objectively less powerful than in many competing laptops. Nonetheless, in daily use, the Surface Book 3 has never felt lacking for power for me. I was especially impressed by how smoothly it performed while working on a few 3D CAD projects in Autodesk Fusion 360. My desktop PC (with a Ryzen 1700 and Radeon RX580) actually struggles a bit in Fusion; it frequently pauses while editing these project on a 4k monitor. In contrast, the Surface Book 3 exhibited none of the pausing while attached to the same 4k monitor. It didn't take too long for the tablet portion of the Surface Book to warm up and kick in its fans. Although Fusion was using the Nvidia GPU, it was not taxing it. For comparison, I also undocked the tablet portion of the Surface Book to force it to use the integrated Intel Iris GPU. I was pleasantly surprised that there was no noticeable hit to rendering speed while working in Fusion 360. My perception of the performance was quite positive overall. In addition to Fusion 360, I installed some of the Jetbrains developer tools to see how it would fare with those programs. The Surface Book 3 was just barely slower, by an insignificant amount, at building a software project than my employer-provided MacBook Pro. The Surface Book was still a very responsive experience for loading, navigating, and modifying the code. The configuration I received is actually one Microsoft recommends on the Surface Book 3 product page for software developers, and I think it is pretty well-suited to that use case. I also installed Jedi: Fallen Order to compare gaming performance to my desktop. The Surface Book 3 was able to handle this game at least as well as the desktop and its older GPU, if not even slightly better. Although the Surface Book 3 is not a laptop designed for gamers, I think it's definitely suitable for light gaming even on a pretty recent title. The Surface Book did get quite hot, however, including on the back side of the tablet/screen - it was definitely pushed harder than in Fusion 360. Battery life for light-duty tasks (like Web browsing or using productivity software) was no problem. While I did not reach Microsoft's official estimates of 17.5 hours, I got at least 10 hours of time on a charge (and it wasn't quite drained). I did notice that the power management will drain both batteries (both the "tablet" battery in the screen, as well as the additional battery in the keyboard base) to about 80%, and then proceed to draw solely from the larger battery in the base until it is low. This is a nice way to keep a healthy power reserve available if you want to detach the screen. While I really like the Surface Book 3 overall, I definitely cannot say it's perfect. As far as the hardware itself, I personally would find it more elegant if it supported a Thunderbolt port rather than, or in addition to, the proprietary Surface Connect port. (Microsoft has apparently stated that the omission of Thunderbolt is for improved security, which is a good reason.) Beyond the hardware, I also thought it was very disappointing that Microsoft only includes a Windows 10 Home license. Certainly for software development, the Hyper-V support in Windows 10 Pro would be useful. At the price point this computer comes in at, additional cost for Pro features feels a bit like a nickel-and-diming move. On the bright side, the Windows 10 May 2020 update will add WSL v2, which should soften this particular blow for a lot of software developers (Docker will be able to run using WSL 2, even for Home licenses). But that, in turn, brings me to another disappointment - the May 2020 update is still blocked for the Surface Book 3 at the time I write this. I have also experienced some behavior quirks and outright bugs with the Surface Book. For instance, sometimes when I plug the included charger in, Windows puts a warning on the battery/power icon in the taskbar, and clicking on the icon indicates Windows has detected a "Slow Charger." Reconnecting the charger does not help, but restarting the computer has always fixed it. On at least one occasion, after reattaching the screen to the base, the discrete Nvidia GPU was not recognized until I deteached and reattached one more time. I've also experienced a couple of freezes that have required me to force-reboot the machine. So, it seems that there are still some software bugs to be worked out (though it makes me that much more anxious for the May 2020 update, in case anything has been improved already). Despite these issues, I'm still very positive on the Surface Book 3. It feels like a very good quality laptop, with the bonus versatility afforded by being able to undock the screen and use as a tablet. I am pleased with the performance; in fact, I was impressed to see it match or exceed my desktop PC (even with a 3 year age difference, the Surface Book 3 is doing it with a mobile CPU, and a "low-power" one at that). I'm optimistic that most of the hardware issues I noted are actually software or firmware growing pains that will get ironed out eventually. I'd really like to give this product a 4.5 star rating if I could, but on the basis of my optimism that my observed issues will be fixed, I'm rounding it up to a full 5 stars rather than down to 4.

As a member of Best Buy's Tech Insider Network, I'd like to disclose up front that I received this Microsoft Surface Book 3 in exchange for this review. Reviewers in this invitation-only program are provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews. My review has not been impacted by the fact that I've not had to pay for it. With that out of the way... The latest Surface Book is a well refined package that does a lot of things well. Aesthetics, usability, and build quality come together to deliver a nearly perfect machine, let down by an underwhelming CPU choice and lack of storage (on this particular configuration). It's in a class of its own in terms of design, and would work well for anyone needing a portable design capable machine, but the performance brings into question whether the design is worth the trade offs. Let's dive in. The screen is absolutely stunning. To my eyes, it's perfect for anyone into content creation (which this machine is undeniably targeted towards). Colors are vivid, blacks are deep black (very little to no backlight bleed, which typically drives me nuts with laptop displays), and the resolution (4K) is predictably stunning on a screen of this size. Making things all the better is the fact that you can detach the screen from the body and use it like a tablet. The 15" variant here is admittedly a little large for the type of usage I get out of it, but I could see this being a giant selling point to anyone doing graphic design and desiring a more slate like setup. The detaching mechanism works pretty flawlessly; you press the detach button on the keyboard, wait a second, and you get a visual prompt that the screen is ready to detach. That's it. In cases where you're using an application that's taking advantage of the discrete GPU inside the keyboard, you'll get a prompt notifying you to deal with whatever you're doing there before you can detach. This is a great feature that Microsoft absolutely nailed here with the Surface Book 3, giving you the usability of a keyboard with a powerful GPU teamed with a flexibility and mobility of a tablet. Speaking of the keyboard, it is simply put the best laptop keyboard I've ever typed on. Anyone needing a laptop with which to do hours of typing will not be disappointed. The keys are comfortable and have a reassuring amount of travel that really makes it a joy to type on. Similarly, the touch pad also works VERY well, though the small size is quite puzzling to me. There is a lot of real estate available below the keyboard that could've been used to expand the pad, and the Surface Book would've been well served utilizing said space. Also on the input front... No pen included?! To be frank, this laptop is simply too expensive to not bundle the pen in. This is becoming something of a norm, as other competitors have opted to include it (my personal experience being with the HP x360 Spectre). Again, as I see this being geared primarily towards graphic designers and content creators, I feel like it's a big miss of them to not include it here. One other note; while this laptop includes a headphone jack, it's located in the upper right hand side of the screen. I know the overall trends say that most people will be using bluetooth headphones, but this placement is actually a pretty major annoyance since your cord is constantly in the way unless you tuck it under the laptop. It's a small but annoying quirk. After using my Surface Book 3 for a week, the main issue I've run into is the included amount of storage on this particular configuration. In 2020, 256 GB does not cut it, especially considering Windows 10 cuts a decent chunk of that storage before you've installed a single program. Reiterating the fact that this machine is targeted towards content creators, it's easy to see a scenario where you'll run out of room quite quickly if you do any sort of video or photo editing. While you can obviously supplement with an external drive, that's an unnecessary added cost and pain point in my opinion, and because of the sleek and innovative design of the Surface Book 3, there is ZERO ability to upgrade any of the internal components. What you buy is what you'll be stuck with permanently. Consider that carefully before making your choice. The other main issue I have with the Surface Book 3, which applies across the all versions and not just this particular configuration, is the processor. Quite frankly, I'm disappointed in the performance of the CPU Microsoft chose to put into this computer. It feels under powered in multimedia tasks, especially when considered next to the included Nvidia GPU. Upon booting it up for the first time, I was actually fairly disappointed in general system responsiveness; turning the machine on takes longer than I'd expect given the solid state drive, and even something as straight forward as watching a 4K video on YouTube caused some scroll lag in Chrome. Scrubbing in Adobe Premiere and scrolling in Photoshop both exhibit disheartening amounts of lag; it'll be enough to slow down professional editors, but will be more of a mere annoyance to prosumer/hobbyists like myself. Thus far, I've attempted some video editing using Premiere and some cell phone shot 4K clips; one particular test I ran was to apply a noise reduction filter (high setting) to a 2:12 length, 4K (~50mbps) MP4 clip, which took about 11 minutes total to complete and was a completely CPU bound task, with a max boost clock of 2.06 GHz. This may give you a bit of a sense of what kind of power we're looking at with the CPU. The Surface Book 3 does the job, but it doesn't do it exactly admirably. Editing photos in Photoshop is a mostly similar experience, especially with RAW images; adding layers and effects to images just isn't as snappy as it feels like it should be. Overall, I'd sum the CPU up as usable but a bit disappointing. Whereas the CPU is a letdown on the Surface Book 3, the GPU (the very capable GTX 1660 TI Max Q) is the strong point of the computer. It offers up a good amount of horsepower for scenarios ranging from media rendering to gaming. On the topic of gaming, some might be interested to find that my machine scored a 4877 run in Time Spy (3dmark) on a near fresh Windows install, out of the box with latest Nvidia drivers. There are better options for gaming for less money, but realistically, that's not why you're buying this machine anyhow. Overall, the Surface Book 3's gaming acumen is a great added bonus, held back completely by the absolute dearth of storage on this particularly model, especially considering new games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare are pushing or exceeding 200 GB install sizes (making the 256 GB of storage available here a non-starter in that case). Again, consider your needs carefully before deciding on a trim level. Build quality on the Surface Book 3 is overall top notch. Everything here feels like an ultra premium laptop and compares favorably to my Mac Book Pro (circa mid-2019). The only somewhat questionable design aspect comes from the hinge; it operates well, but the screen is fairly heavy, meaning the machine is not only top heavy in the lap (set it in your lap and it'll start rocking a bit backwards), the hinge "wobbles" a bit when you move the laptop around. Usually this would bother me, but given the hinge mechanism in place here, it's not a big deal honestly since the detach/attaching mechanism works so well. The TL;DR here is that if you're a content creator looking for the flexibility of a tablet but with the power of a discrete GPU for powerful media rendering that could also allow for some decent gaming, this is likely the only game in town. However, consider both the fact that CPU is slightly underwhelming and that you will forever be stuck with the hardware you buy up front and in this case the 256 GB hard drive kills this build for me. Overall, this is a premium machine that checks most of the boxes, but it's hard for me to overlook those two downfalls.

It stopped working. It does not power on. After set up and loading my information, i came back later to turn it on and go to work and it doesn't.

I recieved this Surface 3 as an item to test without cost provided through the invitation only Best Buy Tech Insider Network Program from Best Buy to give my honest, unbiased opinion about performance and functionality of this computer. The version I recieved is the 15" 4k screen with pixelsense, 16gb ram and 256gb solid state drive with an Nvidia graphics card that has it's own dedicated memory. I find that a nice plus out of the box compared to most of the competition using an integrated graphics card. This does not have any optane memory listed like others, but this still starts up quick and loads programs fast. Granted solid states do load very quick, and is faster than the desktop I have with standard 7200rpm hard drives (it's only 2 years old). This has facial recognition lock, but I chose not to set this up because I sometimes need others to get stuff for me, and If I'm having someone do that, I don't want any delays. Generally I'll be the only user, and I'm not doing top secret work or anything that is needing that extra security. So using this, the mousepad is responsive and intuitive, but I did prefer using a separate mouse. The keyboard is a good size, nice feel to the keys, and I adjust quickly to the smaller size vs my desktop keyboard. The touch screen is phenomenal. I've used this with Adobe Photoshop and to zoom in and see stuff at this level of detail is excellent to crop or touch up photos. Cropping, loading editing, and transferring photos for me goes smoothly, no hiccups. I also have used my external Blu-ray drive/burners to burn DVD's quickly with this using Nero software. I have even done it from one drive to the other having 2 burners hooked up at once to see if this machine can do it, and it does. I have also taken several old recordings and used Nero wav editor to cut out lead ins and such to clean the recordings up and splice them together and get them on CD for permanent storage. What can I say, I'm still a bit old school and don't 100% trust my whole life to be in a cloud in digital. The Dolby Atmos sound is very good, I have not had a laptop with this good of built in sound ever. I have some 5.1mix sacd's and DTS mixed albums and I am very pleased with this. Watching movies in Atmos is great, I am able to duplicate my home theater system on my laptop. Doing all this stuff on this computer, I see no lags in transitions or if I have 2 or more things toggling between. I have also utilized this for several driving games in tablet form and notebook form, no stalling and gaming play is responsive, no lag and great clarity. I also use this to work for home doing telehealth clinic, and it's important to work and not have any lag. This does the trick, with the only lag I have is the network I have to use. So, positives of this, no lags, glitches, things load fast what I've thrown at it, it takes it without issues. Start up and shut down is quick. Set up was quick, and I got all my programs loaded promptly. The display and ability to zoom on details with great resolution allows more precise edits. The sound is excellent for a laptop. The build quality is solid, nice to feel metal-like feel in my hands, sturdy. I have not had a chance to really test the battery life, but what I've seen so far, not sure if it's as good as the claim, It dropped 60% in 3 hours of use recently with autodim screen brightness, and recommended power mode. Again, I have not tested officially tested it for duration of how long it could run, but I question if it would make the 17 hours claim unless in the stingiest of settings. It does look like it has some type of dual battery system. Negatives, no real complaints other than retail cost, this seems like it's very expensive compared to several models from competitors being very competable. However, most of those do not have the dedicated graphics, and this has better cameras on the front (full HD) and back (good for my video conference). I'm also not sure battery life is as good as they advertise. This also has really good sound, not sure how those others stack up. I feel one thing this presents is backing by the manufacturer that made the operating system. That being so, I hope it means future obsoleteness by software is minimal and they will be on top of updates for this and keep the drivers for they equipment in future windows releases. Plus tech support appears to be redily available for up to 1 year, which I hope to not have to use (things continue tol run well). That in and of itself is a benefit, usually extras for other companies. I would recommend this for a person who needs to make sure they have a system that is stable, compatible. It's powerful and though pricy, hopefully, it is peace of mind. I would really give this a 4.5 due to the few con's I mentioned, but I have to round, so I chose to round up.

Very bad , shut down many times! Have to return it!

Welcome to my review of the Microsoft Surface Book 3 15” Model:SLZ-00001. Before I begin I would like to disclose that I have been provided the Surface Book 3 in exchange for and as fair compensation of my time testing and reviewing the product in a fair, honest and unbiased manner. If you are reading this review it’s most likely because you are thinking of buying a high-end laptop computer and you want to see what other buyers have experienced before you pull the trigger. That’s what I hope to help you with. There is a lot of marketing material available from the manufacturer easily available to you online. My review is based on the way I use a computer, and my life experiences (i.e. I’m not writing a sales pitch). A powerful computer is needed for specific applications; (1) those that require lots of number-crunching CPU power such as writing and compiling source code, (2) graphics intensive applications that require powerful GPUs for video editing, photo-editing, graphics design and rendering, 3D modeling, VR, and gaming. There are differing levels of capabilities within these classes, and generally speaking the more you spend the more power you get. In review is the Surface Book 3 SLZ-00001 model, which features a 10th generation Intel Core i7 processor, and an nVidia GeForce GTX 1660 TI GPU. Internal storage is provided by a 256GB SSD, RAM comes in at 16GB. There are a ton of other features, but for the purposes of what I believe the target customer will be - these are the primary factors to focus on. Executive Summary: I used the SB3 for compiling code (via Microsoft Visual Studio), and for editing videos and photos, for CAD and 3D modeling. I do consider myself a power user who works in technology, but my profession is not editing videos or using CAD software for modeling and design. If your needs fall into that category and you have above average power needs in your profession - my advice is to skip over this particular model and jump up to the top of the line and get the Surface Book 3 with the nVidia Quadro RTX 3000 GPU. Max out the memory and the SDD, and you will have a monster of a machine to use for Solidworks, or AutoCad, or heavy duty video renderings. The Quadro RTX 3000 GPU is a fantastic graphics processor, it pushes this laptop into the desktop replacement arena. If you can afford it, get that one! Let’s get to it! Software I installed and ran: Adobe Photoshop Premiere Pro (professional video editor) Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom (professional photo editor) Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements (consumer photo and video) Dassault SolidWorks (3D modeling) AutoDesk AutoCad (3D modeling) Avid Media Composer (Video Editor) Microsoft Visual Studio Results PPR installed and ran without any issues, updates occurred quickly and no problems. I didn’t notice any issues until I started rendering very large video files and optimizing them. Then I notice lag in the system. The CPU utilization was high, but not terrible, neither was the memory overwhelmed. I could only surmise the issues I was experiencing were due to the GPU in this particular notebook. The average user may never notice, but the professional would absolutely notice. P&L installed and ran without any issues, updates occurred quickly and no problems. App start time was a little better than average I would say, likely due to the high speed RAM and speedy SSD. I had no problem editing large uncompressed images, I noticed no lag at all. It really performed well, and the imaging on the LCD panel was beautiful and very accurate colors. I was impressed. Elements (photo & video), installed just fine and came up quickly. No surprise each application worked splendidly, since these are essentially lite versions of the professional packages which I just discussed. The Surface Book 3 handled these without breaking a sweat. Now we start getting into the heavy stuff… Modeling software is a notoriously power hungry application, particularly on the video system. But I wanted to see if the SB3 was up to the challenge. SolidWorks installed and configured fine. It had it moments during the install, and during updates. But it’s a big application, so I wasn’t surprised. SW3D ran fine until I introduced some rather large files to work on. It didn’t crash, but it did slow down and became noticeable when rendering and moving 3D objects. Again, I was likely seeing the limitations of the built-in GPU. I wouldn’t recommend it for the pro, but the enthusiast is going to be okay. ADAC - same story, installation was none-eventful. But I did have the same type of issues running large AutoCad files as I did with SolidWorks. For the average hobbyist and tinkerer this machine would suffice. But not for a power-user, especially one that is using this for their business. Avid Media Composer is a great video editing system, but a bit complicated. I had more problems running this one than I did Adobe Premiere when editing and rendering large videos. No crashes, just laggy and not as speedy as my desktop workstation which has a high end video card in it. Again, it worked - and did the job. But doesn’t compete with a professional video editing machine. Installed Microsoft Visual Studio and everything worked smoothly and super fast. I loaded up some raw uncompiled code, and it had no problem at all in crunching through it. As quick as my desktop PC I do most of my work on. Excellent performance all around. Application Testing Summary All the applications installed and ran, and were entirely usable. Professional level power-use of the applications were a challenge to the SB3 at times, most likely due to the video GPU in this particular unit. Microsoft does offer a huge step up in the SB3 family featuring an NVIDIA® Quadro RTX™ 3000 GPU. If I was going to buy a laptop for 3D modeling or complex video editing - I would absolutely buy this model. My guess is that with that GPU onboard any lag I experienced in my tests would vanish. The RTX 3000 is a monster graphics processor for a laptop, and many of the current graphics applications (including those I tested with), will make use of the capabilities in the GPU. If I ever get my hands on that model I’ll rerun the tests and let you know. Likes Beautiful design and top notch build quality (Apple level construction) Choice of materials - sturdy shell, stiff surfaces underneath, soft-touch on top. Gorgeous screen, big, bold and vibrant (3:2 aspect 3240x2160). Best screen I’ve seen on a laptop, Period. Battery life is advertised up to 17.5 hours. However I never hit the posted times - but I believe them! I’m actually shocked at how good the battery life is considering there’s a power i7 CPU, a super bright LCD panel, and a speedy GPU. Credit goes to intelligent battery power saving, and a dual-battery configuration (one in the tablet and one in the base). But remember if you go into tablet mode you’ll be running on just the one smaller battery so time will be seriously diminished. Keyboard is wonderful! Best keyboard on a laptop I’ve used, and I’ve used many. Again, no expense was spared in building this impressive machine. Touchpad is big and responsive, with the right amount of sensitivity in the goldilocks zone. SD Card slot, since just about every gadget uses one for storage. Discrete nVidia 1660 ti GPU built into the base is like a supercharger on a muscle car. But remember when you undock the video chip stays in the base not in the tablet. Microsoft engineers thankfully put some nifty touches in this design. For example when you discount the tablet (undock), you are free to roam about. But wait, what happens if your tablet battery runs down? Do you have to go back and redock? Nope! The center connector that binds the table to the keyboard base doubles as a power port. So you simply use the same connector to charge the base to charge the table. Neat! I like the power adapter, it is lightweight, small, and doesn’t look like every other adapter I have in my drawers at home (a good thing). I’m also intrigued that a 3-prong plug (with ground), is not used. Instead a standard 2-prong plug connects to a socket. This is actually wonderful, but I am curious why and how they decided on this. But I like it! Dislikes Terrible speakers. It’s a shame too because the internal audio system is top-notch. I’m surprised Microsoft didn’t do better… They bought the right audio processors and amplifiers but not the right speakers. Shame. Having said that if you plug a good pair of amp’d speakers into the earphone jack you will get amazing sound! Position of headphone jack. Who’s idea was it to put the headphone jack on the top of the bezel? It makes no sense when the system is used as a laptop or a tablet. Then again, most people are going to use bluetooth. I guess I should be thankful that they included a jack at all (since Apple no longer does). Only one power port. I use a Chromebook for light-duty tasks (surfing), and I really love it. One thing it has that I wish the SB3 had is a power port (USB 3), on either side of the laptop. This is so convenient! I can sit on either side of an outlet and plug in without having to reroute the cable. Such a simple thing, but so useful! Microsoft makes a beautiful pen that works with the Surface Book 3, in fact it should be packaged with the SB3. And yet, it’s an option you have to buy. So I did not have one to use in my tests. A huge disappointment, and I found it confusing… I have a love/hate thing going with the hinge. I’m sure it’ll grow on me, but I don’t see the appeal. It’s innovative I guess, but the best solution? Not so sure. Time will tell. I just don’t like the gap when the unit is closed. Also the hinge has a limited range of movement. Just not a fan, but I’ll live with it.

The Surface Book 3 is a very impressive piece of machinery. I have been a Mac guy for the past 10 years but the Surface Book 3 has changed the game for me and made me realize that I still have a love for the Windows OS. For the longest time I haven’t understood why Apple couldn’t make a Tablet/Laptop that has a touchscreen and laptop functionality. Microsoft has basically solved that and then some with this computer. I was sent the Surface Book 3 to evaluate because I am a reviewer in an invitation-only program and am provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews, but that definitely has zero effect on how much I love this computer! I am a professional photographer so I was very interested in having a portable editable laptop with the functionality of a touchscreen tablet. Initial setup and presentation of the SB3 was very good. It took only a few minutes to get everything up and operational. Windows 10 is very user friendly and easy to navigate. This particular model is an i7 with a 256 gb SSD, 16GB of Ram, and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GPU which for any normal computer is an absolute beast let alone a portable laptop/tablet. The unit is robust and sleek, keyboard is responsive and had a good feel to it and touchpad works as expected. Performance wise the two things that I noticed right away that are different from my MacBook Pro is that the SB3 runs virtually silent and very very cool. If I do anything labor intensive on my MacBook it sounds like a jet engine is taking off. My main editing programs for photos are Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. I usually tend to push my machines to the limits by exporting photos and editing at the same time and the SB3 handles everything beautifully. What made it even more impressive is while doing all these labor intensive tasks I can DETACH the unit from the keyboard and take it with me to the couch. I went ahead and purchased the Surface Pen to use for editing and I have to say it is an amazing companion to the tablet feature of the SB3. It detects when your pen hovers above the screen and allows you to really edit photos down to a very fine degree. For photoshop its particularly helpful to make tight selections or edit out flyways or other imperfections. While using the pen it almost feels like I’m painting which has become a more a nice change for me with editing. I have found myself for the last week grabbing my SB3 to do nightly editing while sitting with the family in the living room and its really allowed me a degree of flexibility I didn’t have before with my work. The 15 inch screen is bright and crisp, text is easy to read even in dark situations. The battery life is exceptional as well. Even little things like an SD card reader, extra USB ports and a USB C port and REALLY good speakers. It really astounds me how good the Surface Book 3 is. Microsoft has managed to make a laptop that doubles as a tablet thats better than an iPad Pro with full computer functionality. I would highly recommend this to anyone who’s looking for a hybrid powerhouse of a laptop.

DISCLAIMER This review is in affiliation with Best Buy’s Tech Insider Network Program. Reviewers in this invitation-only program are provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews.  Microsoft has asked that I make sure to speak to this computer's processing power. To review this specific subject I chose to download a video game that gives my PlayStation trouble, Destiny 2, and to play around with Photoshop. First, it should be said that this computer wasn't intended to be a gaming computer, but a strong digital workhorse for things like CAD programs and Photoshop, but Destiny 2 looks and runs spectacularly. The game loaded much faster than on my PlayStation and ran just as smooth. The only issue I noticed was that the inventory menu was slow to load visualizations of my avatar and its gear. That may be more of an issue with the game itself though, as it is slow on console as well. Just not as slow. A potential issue with playing the game was that the computer was working really hard to stay cool. The unit got very warm and the fan(s?) were whirring up a storm. I imagine long-term gaming sessions could potentially be damaging without an additional cooling unit. Also, and not surprisingly, gaming sucks up battery power pretty quickly.  As for Photoshop, I had no issues whatsoever. There was no lag switching between projects with multiple layers and load times were pretty quick. Unfortunately, the computer does not come with a pen, so at this point I cannot comment on how well that feature works. Unlike while playing a video game, the computer did not struggle nearly as hard to stay cool and was relatively silent while running Photoshop. I wish I had more to say on this subject, but the computer worked flawlessly for me.  As someone who doesn’t regularly or professionally use programs that require the functionality of a “transforming” laptop I kind of think of the removable screen/tablet as a bit of a gimmick. Granted, it's a gimmick that I've been intrigued by and fell for. I don't mean to suggest that having a gimmick is a bad thing, just that to me it seems like a cool feature intended to attract sales but doesn't have a huge amount of practical value. The unit as a whole is so small that I see little advantage to removing the tablet and leaving the keyboard behind. Especially since it prolongs battery life. I suppose though, that if I were an art student today I might argue differently. That being said, the technology is pretty cool. The connections on the keyboard base do not look remotely significant enough to hold the tablet securely in place at all, but once appropriately docked to the base it feels like a regular laptop. I found it interesting that the Surface Book 3 feels smaller than a traditional 15” laptop (and it is, but not by much) but once undocked, the tablet seems enormous. Much like the gimmick aspect, I don’t feel that the enormity of the tablet is a bad thing, especially when using it for programs that the hardware was intended for. I would have been in seventh Heaven if I had this computer when I was in art school 20 years ago.  I find the inclusion of Dolby ATMOS to be a bit of a gimmick as well. Again, while it is a really cool feature, the speakers just aren't large enough to give off the quality of sound that would make something like ATMOS a good value. The depth and bass just isn't possible on such tiny speakers to make this feature worth including. If you are watching a movie (the intended purpose for ATMOS, if I’m not mistaken) on your laptop, chances are you will be wearing headphones anyway. Granted, Microsoft probably makes money off of Dolby by including the technology so, good for them. For the money I'd prefer to have a pen included instead of ATMOS. All-in-all, I'm impressed with this laptop from Microsoft. It is constructed well, looks great and runs smoothly. I am looking forward to more photo editing and gameplay and maybe even some music creation in the near future.  What I Like: -Super fast/capable 10th generation i7 processor with SSD16GB memory -Pretty good battery life -Quality construction (mostly aluminum instead of predominately plastic, docking mechanism) -Detachable tablet (even if it is gimmicky, it's still cool)  What I Would Like to See: -Included pen (even if it's just a cheap intro stylus) -A physical slider/shutter to cover the camera… for those of us that are paranoid -An internal blu-ray drive (I get why they aren't included any longer, but I like having it) -The same screen (tablet) ratio as standard laptops

Bad, bad, bad, reboot, bad, blue screen, reboot, bad, keyboard flex bad, bad, and also bad.

Best Buy Tech Insider Network disclosure: Reviewers in this invitation-only program are provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews. Microsoft has come a long way since the first Surface tablet over 7 years ago. There have been many variations & designs with different target users. The Surface Book 3 seems to be the top of the line portable version, targeting the creative user, such as graphic designers, video editors, architects and developers. It is very powerful, with a 10th generation Intel Core i7-1065G7 Processor. Although the whole laptop looks plastic, it is actually magnesium alloy. The keyboard base has two USB 3.1 Type A ports, one USB-C, a SD Card reader. The keyboard is backlit (once you turn it on) and the touchpad has a very smooth feel to it, making it easy to glide across. The screen/tablet has a 3.5mm headphone jack (which seems to be becoming a rare feature lately). Unfortunately, there is no HDMI port, but you can connect to a wireless display. And one thing I would like to have seen was Thunderbolt capability for the USB-C port so I could use the min dock I already have to connect to a couple of my monitors. This version come with Windows 10 Home, but I upgraded it easily to Windows 10 Pro (in order to access my home server/domain easier). You can get up to 17.5 hours on battery, but when attached to the keyboard base, which contains its own battery. The 15" PixelSense display is great! Colors are very vibrant. It isn't the 16:9 HD/QuadHD/UltraHD(4K) ratio that most laptops are, but the 3:2 ratio give a better area to work with, especially with graphic design/editing. You do get the vertical resolution of UltraHD/4K of 2160 pixels, but only 3240 pixels wide (compared to 3840 pixels for UltraHD). Still a better resolution compared to the latest Surface Laptop 3. Honestly, I am so used to the widescreen displays, I wasn't sure about the change, but surprisingly, I really like it, with it being a taller screen. When closed, it stays that way with a little magnetic help. The screen/tablet portion is held in place on a couple of metal tab magnetically (holds very strong) and can be detached with the dedicated button to the left of Del key, or via the notification area on the Taskbar. The fulcrum style hinge is a little different, where it kind of rolls back to open. With the hinge design, the screen doesn't lay flat when closed, which is different from most laptops (even 2-in-1's). This will mainly be a benefit when the tablet portion is reattached in reverse and folded down into "Studio Mode" for graphic design use, giving it a slight angle. Compared to my other 2-in-1, I kind of prefer the non-detaching, flip to back mode of that one (just for the little bit of ease of doing it, vs. detach/reattach) and the ability to put it in many different angles for use. Still, you do get a lighter tablet detaching, which is easy to hold, but you lose access to the USB ports and memory card reader. I do wish that the edges were a little more rounded instead of squared-off, but it's not too bad. The place I would really like to be less pointy is on either side of the notched out area along the front edge by the touchpad. I mentioned that this is very powerful, and that is so true. With the kids' theatre and orchestra performances, I do a lot of recording and creating videos from these recordings. I wanted to compare the Surface Book 3 to my 2 year old 8th Generation Core i7 in my other 2-in-1 laptop (both with 16GB RAM and M.2 drives). I usually don't create 4K videos because it was taking so long to render. I started a 4K video render (mpeg-4, 30fps, from 4K recordings) on both laptops at the exact same time. For a 30 minutes video (an 8.5GB file), while it did take the Surface Book about 100 minutes to complete, the other laptop, which I thought was a really good laptop, was only at 47% complete. Another test run to render from the 4K recordings to FHD took about 31 minutes. I also do development using Visual Studio. It runs great on there and compiles and runs the code very fast. And the Surface Book handles the graphics design software I use great as well.

I was primarily interested in getting the Surface Book version of the Surface because I wanted to save the desk real estate behind the computer by having the "keyboard" hold up the screen rather than having it rest on a kickstand. I also wanted the Surface version of the convertible laptop form factor, because folding a keyboard under your tablet is never a great way to use a tablet. You really need to be able to remove the keyboard to use a computer as a tablet. The Surface Book provides those advantages, but it also diverges from the typical convertible experience in some other ways. For one, the keyboard is much more of an appendage here than an integral part of the computer like it is in a typical laptop. There are no speakers or vents (they're behind the screen). The backlit keyboard and touchpad are good, but there's a lot of unused real estate on that half of the computer. Part of that can be attributed to the height of the screen. The aspect ratio makes the screen a lot taller than the typical 15" laptop, and that form factor also makes it more suitable for use as a tablet. A nice side benefit of that aspect ratio is that you have a lot more vertical room when using graphics programs, which it also handles very capably. While you get used to having to do a lot more vertical scrolling when using graphics programs on a laptop, the extra headroom on the Surface screen is immediately appreciable. While most convertible laptops seemed to be designed to be used only rarely as a tablet, and seem to be optimized for use as a laptop, the Surface Book seems designed for use as a tablet first, but with really strong capabilities as a computing platform. This makes itself most evident when using graphics programs in the tablet form factor. But even when taxing the processor heavily in a typical laptop setup with a second screen attached, it shows its power computing capabilities. One other thing to note is how well it handles undocking from the keyboard, even when a second monitor is attached. I don't know that I've ever seen a laptop handle undocking from external monitors without having to close every program first, but the Surface Book preserved all the windows without a hitch. It also deals with the rotating the screen much better, although there is a slight lag when doing that. I was pleasantly surprised by how well this form factor works. Although I can write about it all day, you can't really appreciate it until you start using it, especially when you're used to the constraints of typical laptops. I think a lot of those advantages and improvements come from the tablet-first design choices, but it still works so well as a production laptop. My one complaint is the proprietary power connection. Why can't Microsoft just use USB C like every other manufacturer in the world? If you're looking for a computer that you can also actually use as a tablet, rather than just a laptop with a touchscreen, this is the way to go. Reviewers in this invitation-only program are provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews. While this review happens to be very positive, if you look at some of my other reviews, they are not always this nice.

Before I begin, I want to be clear that I was provided this laptop through my affiliation with the Tech Insider Network. Reviewers in this invitation-only program are provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews. I stick to my unbiased portion of that review and always based my review on how I would feel if I had just spend retail price for the product I was provided. While this laptop is one of the pricier options in the market if I had to pay full retail in order to keep a surface book 3 I would in a heart beat. It really is the best laptop I've had. I would describe it as the laptop that has all those things you like about performance and design in a Mac, but with an operating system and archtecture designed to use 99% of applications out there so you don't have to compromise avilability of native applications inorder to get a laptop you're happy about. I like the screen factor, I didn't look to know for sure but it feels more like 4:3 instead of 16:9, giving you a little more vertical space than you typically get on laptops now. Also having a 15" instead of 14" option really helps when working on the laptop itself instead of a second monitor. Screen definition is great. It is clear Microsoft thought hard about the experience when performing creative tasks like photo and graphics editing. Filters apply seamlessly thanks to the beefy GPU and while it feel penny-pinching to sell seperatley, working with the surface pen does really improve the editing experience as you really can work with the different brush types and "feel" the pressure change of light vs strong strokes etc. I was able to create and apply some filtering effects and apply them to local photos quickly. The tablet mode, seperating the screen from the base, is a very cool party trick, but ultimately I don't think I'm going to use that mode nearly enough to justify the design trade-offs MS had to make in order to build the capability. There are a couple minor complaints about the design that keep it from being perfect: I wish the keyboard took better advantage of the 15" layout, it looks like it is the same keyboard used in the 13" models just dropped in the middle of a 15". While I like the look of the hard edges I do find myself wishing there was a little lip to the bottom of the laptop so that it was easier to pick up, it can be difficult to slide your fingers underneath to grab one handed and head-off with laptop in nook of arm. I also wish that it was a little more projector friendly as I've had to pack my baggy-o-dongles back in my bag inorder as USB-c and Surface Port are the output options built-in. The complaints are minor compared to the overall excellence in design and performance that I've seen over the past week.

Adobe premiere would not work even Photoshop was a dog.

Purchased this laptop for work. Side note, I have had the previous two generations of this product as well and this is the first time I have owned it in the 15 inch model. That being said, I have to say, the third version of this product is the best yet from Microsoft. Previously before I owed multiple apple MacBooks and to be honest, I just didn’t feel like apple really wanted to branch out like the surface products. Anyway, I use this product for 12 hours a day with both the screen attached and detached. The speed and the fact that I can detach the monitor to use as a tablet on the fly is the reason I live this product so much. The only thing I would recommend to Microsoft is to update the design. It is the same as the original surface book.

This is the Third and Final Surface Book we'll have purchased. Slow startup speeds even with an i7, 32G of ram, turning off all but a few startup programs with 'low' impact on startup time, as well as some other troubleshooting. this is my partner's remote work machine and he exclusively uses Microsoft branded products and he experiences constant issues with devices disconnecting, refusing to connect for the initial setup, etc.. the computer itself will even shut off randomly (this was the case with the Surface Book 2 as well; which led to the purchase of the SB3 against my advisory) I have been using a Dell Precision 5540 that I use to host VMs for software development alongside a significant armada of browser tabs on my host machine. I've had no major issues with the computer nor the auxiliaries. At my suggestion, my partner's next computer will be of a current Dell Precision model (highly recommend, especially if you like upgrading your computer's hardware yourself)

Already having issues out of the box Extremely disappointed with the Microsoft Surface Book 3 “15” in 32 GB and 2TB. During the settings, the device keep on crashing and showed the blue screen error over 15 times. I had to restart the device so many times that it was getting ridiculous and pretty pathetic. Overall, I decided to return and get a refund. For this device that I paid over $3,110.24 to start having problems right out of the box.