Gadgetory

this is the new Microsoft service book with performance-based looking almost identical to the last gen surface book the magnesium clad tune won the Microsoft was touting as the ultimate computer and he really likes the first gen thought it showed a lot of promise but is lacking some things both hardware and software we thought future iterations would improve on well we've got it here in performance base you've got bigger battery faster processor you've got an improved video card things that ordinarily make a laptop soon faster that was really excited to test this I figured what better way to test computer and to actually use a computer so I took some advice for myself and I tested the way I do with phones I use this as my only computer for the better part of a week I unplugged my 5k iMac set this up with the dock and two monitors and got to work using this as I needed to use a computer throughout the days and beyond that pick at home with me using my home computer as well this is my only computing that I've been using and I want to share my thoughts with you whether or not I'm going to keep using it and most importantly should you consider buying can I guess officer said you review the surface book I think should start with the design since that's a big chunk what you're paying for and for this version you're going to be paying a lot this is a $3,300 fully loaded version Microsoft sent us so the big story here is not necessarily the magnesium body which looks and feels really nice it's the hinge and the hinge is different right off the bat you can tell it's not your typical clamshell laptop as you go and open it up a kind of unfurls like a rug and one of the issues we have last gen is that I couldn't quite open it with one finger so let's see if that's been fixed this time around not quite but the opening is still really cool as it unfurls you're greeted with now the traditional laptop look but with that kind of cool hinge are some downsides first you've got that gap which allows dust or papers to get in there although with the performance base it is much smaller because the base is bigger for the batteries and presumably for the extra GPU horsepower if you're not familiar with the surface book it detached and the two separate pieces got the clipboard and you've got the performance base and it doesn't kind of a cool way push the button next delete key you get an audible unlock noise it's actually just being piped through the speakers and this part comes off completely and this part microsoft calls a clipboard actually houses almost your entire PC it's got your core i7 your RAM and a smaller battery how's the performance base way more batteries that people talk about and the dedicated GPU I generally just using the clipboard I got about two hours of battery life and it connects via five pins on the bottom the two on the left and the writers for connection and the three are actually transferring data although the middle one you can actually use the charger that comes with the computer to charge it on its own but it will not charge itself with the performance base without being plugged in so if you want to charge this this has to be plugged in when you plug things back in though it does recognize it really quickly which is improvement over last generation you can plug it in a few different ways you can plug it normally like a laptop or turn it around put it in its dock and you could use it as a presentation mode it's great for airplanes for watching movies or you can always fold it down and use as a heavy three point six three pound tablet the keyboard and original surface book was one of the best laptop keyboard I've ever tested I'd love to throw on it and fortunately Microsoft didn't change it if it ain't broke don't fix it it is a really good typing experience and the glass trackpad is still amongst the best glass trackpads that I have ever used it feels a little bit different texturizer you get on something like a macbook pro but it works equally well if you want to worried about scrolling us really it's gonna be with two finger scrolling don't be also supports multi-touch gestures it's a really weird time for i/o or input/output everything's clearly moving to the combo or USB type-c and Thunderbolt 3 but nothing's really bared yet so you look at a new computer like yeah it's good but is it future proof that's a question to ask yourself with the surface book and it's got a pretty generous IO on the left-hand side you've got two USB type a ports are just traditional USB a really shallow SD card reader but you have an SD card reader here on the opposite side you've got mini displayport and you've got Microsoft proprietary surface charger or dock port and it's magnetic not unlike MagSafe and that's where everything is going to kind of plug in an accessory front but no USB see here and it's kind of hard to knock computer for not having it while I'm knocking some computers were having too many USB C ports if it's important to you know this doesn't have it but at least right now it's not really a deal-breaker for me but it may be in about 12 months performance is what matters with the surface book and again at this being the full top-of-the-line SPECT surface book including the gtx 960 5m q gigs of DDR five-membered expected to be fast performance is also the reason that we ended up returning our first gen service book I couldn't handle the editing load that we were putting on it at a big show like CES so I had run free to come give it a shot on Premiere Pro happy to report the results were very different than what we saw just about a year ago 4k scrubbing was very smooth rendering was very fast in fact Ron said it was on par with his 5k iMac and faster than his SPECT to the gills 2015 MacBook Pro so this solves a fundamental problem we had again with flash and we couldn't use this as an editing powerhouse and it worked well it's not going to replace a desktop may stretch the imagination but it works extremely well and Adobe's kind of tight-lipped about what they use most with their suite of software whether or not it's really heavily GPU base or CPU base or a combination of both whatever it is Microsoft really has optimized the software and the hardware to hum along smoothly with Adobe suite if you want to see a full video on how the surface book performs and editing let us know we'll have Ron or Andrew make a full video showing you how a performance but if you want to know if you can use this editing machine in fact making it even more impressive was a smooth performance was even when the computer was docked to two separate monitors and testing this as my everyday computer I didn't have that much time to push it with gaming plans doing a follow up gaming dedicated video but I did try some Starcraft 2 which is my advice when I take a few minutes and it worked really well and obviously it's not the most graphics intensive game but I easily push it to 50 frames per second at 1080p I probably even got higher it was buttery smooth another dock we had on the last gen was the SSD was fast on the read but not fast on the right Microsoft has righted the ship here I got a little over 1,600 Meg's per second on the read and now 1,200 Meg's per second on the right so it's way faster probably accounts for a lot of the improvements that I saw while I was editing I mentioned using this as my everday computer and I that means all the emails I was doing and video editing and browsing and it worked really well it did choke a little bit on Chrome with 8 video tabs open where an edge it didn't that's certainly more of a chrome issue than a service book issue but if you do work in Chrome when you have a lot of video tabs open bear that in mind the fans here also ran relatively silent when it was open being used as a laptop when it was docked and a clamshell motor definitely here the fans kick on that's to be expected because he is anticipating as much as it would good Scout that monitor just slammed on top so about 8 percent of my service book usage was right here with it plugged in and not really worrying about battery life but I could take it home and use it as my only computer when I was traveling and at home that's where I really tested the battery Microsoft is claiming up to 16 hours of battery life and that wasn't quite realistic although I did get a really solid almost 12 hours of brightness at about 80% now you can turn the brightness almost all the way down to black which is nice to see and if you do that they took them close to their 16 hours I never did I like a bright screen that was my real-world usage while testing but if you decide to undock the clipboard and use that on its own really gonna get about two hours battery life and just through that it's also a lot of intangibles that come with the surface book you get things like these surface pen which admittedly I didn't use that much but it does work really well it's got different things you can do you can tap it once to launch OneNote long press to launch Cortana and the back feels like an actual pencil eraser you can use it to erase the screen when you're not using it 6 magnetically to the side really nice that it does that you don't have to plug it into a power port or anything it just sticks there unzila I was tough on the service book and not tough and what I tested but toughen how I using it was my only computer for the better part of a week so I got a chance to really learn Windows and some of the Knox I had when I did the last generation review with Windows itself the mail app for example I couldn't find one I liked the built-in one wasn't pulling an address book drag-and-drop files Microsoft has fixed that that's no longer an issue I found third-party apps if they see things as used to on the Apple side like screenshots had automatic assigned documents to be a preview things like sear and that will keep it spacebar to open up a document like you can on Mac OS made this a really Pleasant transition now it did take me about three or four days to actually get used to the differences in Windows once you get past that hump if you push through it I really found the elegance in Windows and I've really enjoyed using Windows 10 I think Microsoft has is a flagship computer to showcase what the OS can do but not everything was giant roses and wonderful I did have a few issues primarily with Bluetooth my bluetooth headphones of choice are the bose qc25 sync to the best out there but about 8% of the time I get crackling and disconnect and reconnect nothing I've had any other computer that I've tested but appears to be isolated to just those headphones might be a bose issue things like bleaches mice and printers i know she's with it all so if you couldn't tell I really liked using the surface book I like having the power of a desktop the portability of a laptop the flexibility of a tablet and be able to combine my home and work computer into one so I ask you questions the beginning one am i you continue using the surface pro and two should you consider buying one I am absolutely going to keep using this as my only computer I've learned the elegance of Windows it does what you need to do it's flexible and I need it to be and I like the power that comes with it in fact I can see myself very happily using us for the next one two years now should you buy it's a different story it's a very expensive compute this one's jacked up again at 3,300 bucks but if you want the best for Microsoft and the hardware and software standpoint I think look no farther than a surface book we guys think about a surface book because it's a computer for you is price holding you back I know a lot of folks are considering making a switch from Apple to Windows this generation if that's you look at this go to Microsoft Store go to your Best Buy wherever your hands on one and try it I think you're really going to like it now you're gonna take a lot of you see aspect ratio and that kind of stuff once you do that you're gonna appreciate what Microsoft has done here give the video a thumbs up you always appreciate it let us know again if you want to see dedicated videos on video editing until next time Jai Ranger from TechnoBuffalo