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Microsoft Surface Book 2 Puts Desktop Brains in a Laptop Body (wired.com)
David Pierce, writing for Wired: As Microsoft went to create the Surface Book 2, the company once again tried to bust categories. The result is the most combinatory device Microsoft's made yet. It's a laptop (screens measure 13 or 15 inches; there's a keyboard and trackpad) -- and it's also a tablet (the screen detaches, you can use a pen, everything's touch-friendly), and it's also a desktop. A stupendously powerful one, at that: It runs on Intel's new eighth-generation quad-core processors, in either a Core i5 or Core i7 version. The higher-end models come with Nvidia's GeForce discrete graphics, up to 16 gigs of RAM, and as much as 1 terabyte of solid storage. All that in a fanless body that gets up to 17 hours of battery life, and weighs about 3.5 pounds for the smaller model or 4.2 pounds for the larger. What does all that mean? Microsoft claims the smaller model is three times more powerful than the last Surface Book, and the 15-inch runs five times as fast. Those are meaningless comparisons, but the point holds. This thing screams. More useful are the comparisons to Apple's latest MacBook Pros: Microsoft claims up to 70 percent more battery life, and double the performance of Apple's laptops.
The 15" version reportedly starts at $2499, maybe if it's my company paying but not me. It makes my gaming PC - which in itself is a giant money sink - seem like a good investment. Unless you're actually making money with it, real money.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Well, they might double the performance but Microsoft has a long way to go before it even approaches build quality or customer care. Of the 5 surfaces and 3 Surface Books we've purchased, two of the Surfaces are still working. None of the Books.
Trying to get a warranty service from MS is like Time Tunneling back to the '90's and dealing with Dell. Unenglish, unorganized, unhelpful.
Although I really liked my Surface Book for the entire month it worked, we've dropped Microsoft hardware entirely at this point. Details matter, it's not just 'innovation'.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This is a 15W TDP mobile processor, not a desktop chip. Someone should look at the specs before posing nonsense.
https://ark.intel.com/products/124968/Intel-Core-i7-8650U-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz
Apple hasn't updated the MacBook Air for a couple years (e.g. MacBookAir7,2 is the current model and came out in 2015). Apple isn't good about lowering the price as stuff ages.
That desktop part is pure bullshit.
Its CPU is a U series (that's the low power one) mobile CPU (i5-7300U or i7-8650U, both have 15W TDP) and it has the mobile version of the Nvidia GPU, too (and 16 GB max memory is pretty puny).
So it actually has a pretty run-of-the-mill laptop HW, it's the case and the display that is interesting.
Real life is overrated.