Microsoft Surface Book 2 hands on review

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Microsoft Surface Book 2

Don’t mess with a good thing – that’s Microsoft’s new message. The company has just unveiled the latest member of the Surface family of products, a new top-of-the-line powerhouse called the Surface Book 2. And superficially at least, it is identical to the Surface Book. It has the same unique hinged design, the same magnesium finish, the same keyboard and beautiful display. The design was fine before – why mess with it?

Under the hood, however, Microsoft has rethought all aspects of the notebook to make a faster, more efficient machine that’s meant to growl with the fury of a thousand lions. With a 17-hour battery life, the latest Intel quad-core processors, and five times more graphics horsepower than the original, the Book 2 is meant to be king of the jungle.

At a special New York City event showcasing the new Book 2 (and the Fall Creators Update), we had a chance to review the new products, a 13.5-inch and new 15-inch version of the Surface Book 2. And while it may look familiar, it’s a whole new beast.

Mind the gap! A lesson in design

“I think it’s important to not rush from one design to the next. You want your designs to feel and be timeless,” Panos Panay, VP of Devices for Microsoft, told Digital Trends in an exclusive interview following the event. “It would have been a real problem if we had looked at this product and thought, ‘Whoa, we gotta change everything.’”

That means the Surface Book 2 is virtually indistinguishable from the original Surface Book, and I should know: I’ve been carrying one around as my primary system since that first model rolled out. Hold the two units side by side as I did, and you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart, save for the HDMI port on the right-hand side, which has been replaced by a USB 3.0 port. The two are almost interchangeable, despite a remarkable under-the-hood evolution.

What’s that mean? If you liked the hinge in the Book, you’ll love the hinge in the Book 2, even though it’s been completely redesigned to account for the extra weight of the new 15-inch screen. Some people fret about the dynamic fulcrum hinge, which folds up like the spine of a book but leaves a quarter inch gap between keys and screen when closed. Won’t stuff get in there, they worry? No. It doesn’t, and this is from someone who’s used it a lot.

If you liked the keyboard on the Book, you’ll love the keyboard on the Book 2, even though the keys have again been completely redesigned to allow for changes to the circuit boards and fan placement inside the laptop. I tried typing on the keyboard and noticed no changes: I’m annoyed by how loud the keys are on the Book, and found the Book 2 equally loud and clicky, though keys do have a very satisfying depth of travel to them. You’ll feel awkward typing in a library, in other words, but you’ll be nice and accurate.

The design was fine before – why mess with it?

Like the magnesium finish? It looks the same, no new colors, no new fabrics, no new nothing, despite colorful new covers for the Surface Pro announced at more or less the same time. Burgundy? You wish.

The only change we would have liked to see is a place for the Pen. Microsoft touts the Pen as a killer interface feature, and with enough time, you’ll find its conveniences do shine through. But the Surface Book 2 still relies on magnets on the side of the screen to hold the pen – a cute gimmick that essentially means the pen will get lost in your pack. What, you couldn’t build a slot in this thing?

But overall, the lack of change makes sense. Other companies noted for their design and attention to detail have settled on one look and maintained it, come hell or high water. Apple’s newest MacBook looks just like one from three years ago, and the iPhone 8  looks a heck of a lot like the iPhone 6 .

The growl from within

The Book 2 may look and feel the same, but the guts are transformed, starting with the screen, which has finally grown to 15 inches. Yes, there’s still a 13.5-inch model, which has a 3,000 × 2,000 screen with 267 pixels per inch. But the one you’ll want is the 15-inch model, which sports a 3,240 × 2,160 display at 260 ppi. Both look just as gorgeous as earlier screens in the Surface family, such as the stunning Surface Studio, but Microsoft will tell you the brightness and contrast are boosted just a bit. (It was hard to tell.)

The addition of USB 3.0 for the display output is a nice modern touch, and the camera on the back of the screen has been boosted to 8MP with 1080p video, to facilitate Mixed Reality headsets, Microsoft says. The graphics system is far more powerful, and as the CPU is as well – we’ll hold off our judgment on performance until we can spend more time with the product. In general, the Book 2 felt like it was ready to scream.

“We changed the whole product if you will from the inside out,” Panay told me. The biggest change you’ll notice is a complete rethink of fans for the product. The 13-inch model is now fanless, yet the CPU has been pumped up with an 8th generation, Core i7-8650, with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB PCIe SSD. The older Book used a 7th generation Core i7 processor, and using it over the past year, I’ve noticed fans start whirring at the drop of a hat. A fanless system that’s also faster speaks to the engineering gruntwork that went into the Book 2.

Microsoft Surface Book 2 Compared To

LG Gram 15Z970-A.AAS7U1 Laptop

Lenovo Yoga 720 15-inch

Razer Blade Stealth (2017)

Lenovo Yoga 720 13-inch

Samsung Chromebook Pro

Origin EON17-SLX

Asus VivoBook V551LB-DB71T

Acer Aspire V7

Sony Vaio Pro 13

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (2013)

HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook

HP Spectre XT TouchSmart

ASUS Zenbook UX51Vz

Sony Vaio S Series

Apple MacBook Air (11.6-inch)

The larger, 15-inch model uses a top of the line Core i7, but the more important update is the GeForce GTX 1060 discreet graphics chip. Microsoft means for you to play games on this thing, in other words, and we look forward to benchmarking performance.

Too good not to notice

“We built this product so people can create the future on it,” Panay told me, and the company has clearly poured its design and engineering might into making it as powerful as possible. He also thinks good design should fade away into the background, and that makes sense. A thing can be beautiful, but it should be functional above all else – and the Surface Book 2 promises to be enormously powerful.

But fade away into the background? Changed or not, this design remains eye catching, and this device will have a hard time fading away.