After one month of working with the Microsoft Surface Book 2
Shiny, shiny. This ultrabook is a veritable work companion.
Shortly before Christmas, I needed a new laptop. For the last year, I had been working on an older MacBook Pro. It was a really sturdy piece of technology, handling most Adobe Creative Cloud Applications with ease (except for the occasional 250MB Illustrator docs). I could even user Blender and Cinema 4D, although the rendering took a considerable time since the graphics chip was from a past generation.
By the way, I have been growing up on Windows, but I am pretty platform agnostic. I owned an iPhone for a while and had little trouble working on macOS the last months. I also have a proper desktop PC with a dedicated graphics card sitting at home for heavy duty work.
Choosing a new laptop is actually not a lot of fun.
For three days in a row, I roamed through the local electronics superstore laptop section, touching every device and weighing the pros and cons. (as an aside: the employees of this large German chain with a spacey name are really bad salespeople.)
Reading tests online is only semi-helpful (tests done by trustworthy publications are better than horror stories from Amazon customers).
In the end, my requirements were: a light ultrabook, up to 13", with a more than HD resolution display and a really good keyboard.
The choices were limited a bit. I narrowed it down to the Huawei Matebook, a MacBook Pro 13" and a Microsoft Surface Device.
For a while, I considered the Surface Pro Tablet, but that turned out to have the keyboard in the cover and it seemed to be rather rickety when typing (and I do a lot of that!).
The Huawei Matebook was also a candidate with an impressive screen and nice design. But using the trackpad in the stores wasn’t quite the experience I had hoped for — too laggy and unresponsive. If it bugs me when I’m just trying the store, it will probably bug me when I’m working on it as well. That basically left the Surface Book 2 and the MacBook Pro.
Well you already know how I decided. The MacBook Pro lost the race:
- It was more expensive (in comparing the direct tech stats)
- It was heavier and likely to have less battery time
- I don’t like the keyboard on the new models, the keys don’t quite have the punch I expected
- It doesn’t have a touchscreen
So after a month, what is my experience with the Surface Book 2?
I hate to repeat myself, but the keyboard on this thing is impeccable. It’s probably the best keyboard on any machine I have ever worked on. The keys have a perfect resistance and they are rather silent.
There is nothing that makes unexpected noises or feels cheap. The trackpad works wonderfully and honestly, I tend to make use of the touchscreen rather often. It’s something you can get really used to (until your friends are asking you why you are trying to scroll on the screen of their laptops).
The whole device is made of machined magnesium (thanks Lucas for the correction) and has a sturdy and premium feel to it. It’s light enough to be carried around during the day, although I strongly recommend getting a cover. Other metals (like zippers on the inside of your laptop bag) might leave marks on the device.
It’s also cooled passively, so it’s always silent as a cat — especially useful when working at night or watching movies. No more helicopter noises from the laptop.
The screen is fantastic and sports a 3000x2000 pixel resolution (more than 2K). Some older programs are a little bit overwhelmed by this and need a fix to render correctly. Scrivener, the writing program, is an example. It makes the software a little harder to use. But most standard software is fine.
It also has 2 cameras and signs you in with the use of Microsoft Hello, a face-recognition software.
I also got the Surface Pen, but haven’t used it extensively so far.
The integrated Windows Ink program is really cool, but for whatever reason, Photoshop isn’t working too smoothly with the pen.
Here, I also ran into another issue: with some Photoshop experience, you work a lot with keyboard shortcuts. But when I use the device in tablet-only mode, I can’t access the keyboard and the shortcuts. There seems to be some software to fix this, but I haven’t tried it yet. I’m happy for recommendations!
As I said, I’m used to working on Windows and the cool thing is that even when you detach the tablet, it’s still a fully working Windows PC. I’m not limited to any App Stores or the like, but it will run anything that has a Windows installer. I haven’t tried it yet, but that could potentially be used for gaming as well…
The battery so far has been satisfactory, I can work on it (working online and writing) at 50% brightness for 2 days and still watch at least 2–3 hours of video. So even for a long flight, the battery will last if you don’t max out the performance. As for connections: there are two USB-3.1 and one USB-C port, as well as a 3.5mm audio and an SD-card reader.
My previous laptop experiences include a Dell XPS from 2009, a MacBook Pro from 2012 and my girlfriend’s Toshiba from around the same time.
In comparison, the Surface Book 2 really feels “next generation”. It’s so much lighter and more portable, has a detachable 2K touchscreen and passive cooling. It’s a sleek device — a valid work companion.
Thanks for reading, let me know if you have questions!
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