Gadgetory

Microsoft's newest surface was one of the big tech surprises of the year I'm Dan Ackerman and this is the Microsoft Surface book now as opposed to the Microsoft Surface pro that system is basically a full-time tablet with a clip-on keyboard cover that makes it a part-time laptop the surface book on the other hand is a full-time clamshell laptop with a detachable screen that makes it a part-time tablet so how do I know that it's supposed to be a full-time laptop and part time tablet partially it's because they take the battery and they cut it into two pieces 75% of the battery capacity is built in here into the keyboard base while 25% of the capacity may be about three hours worth is behind the display here along with the CPU and a lot of the other components so they want you to use it most of the time like a traditional premium you know high-end laptop and then if you want to you can pop the screen off if you want to share something or you want to go read a book for a while or just kind of walk around with it and then you plug it back in there's even a higher end configuration that includes a new custom GPU from Nvidia that sits right here in the base along with most of the battery so when you have it plugged in you can use that graphics card for video editing or some light gaming and then when you just take the tablet screen off the graphics card get left behind because you don't really need it when you're walking around with just the tablet there are a lot of similarities between the surface book and the surface pro they both have three by two aspect ratio touchscreens that actually match it up with a piece of a4 paper so if you're working on you know let's say design for something that's gonna be printed eventually that makes a lot of sense they both include this excellent stylist Microsoft calls it a pen and it attaches magnetically to the side right here works with a whole bunch of different drawing and sketching and note-taking apps including of course OneNote from Microsoft and they both use Intel's new 6th generation of core I series processors a Core i5 and core i7 processors after years of saying the surface pro series is the tablet that can replace your laptop Microsoft now says they've gone and built what they call the ultimate laptop it's certainly very nicely done if I were building the ultimate laptop it wouldn't have this strange unsightly gap in the middle when you have it closed in in clamshell form and also wouldn't weigh close to three and a half pounds it's a little hefty for kind of just picking up and casually carrying around the house that's it with all these features built-in the touchscreen the stylus the new Intel processors this guy starts at $14.99 but if you want to trade up to the graphics card that's gonna be several hundred dollars more I'm Dan Akron and that is the Microsoft Surface book