This right here is Microsoft’s 13.5” Surface Book 3, which replaces the Surface Book 2
from 3 years ago, and just by looking at the exterior, you would have no idea that it’s
the new one since there are literally no physical changes at all.
The size stayed the same, the keyboard stayed the same, the ports stayed the same, the hinge
design is the same, basically everything is identical between the two except that the
new model has updated internals.
So before I talk about those changes and how I feel about this laptop overall, I want to
show off some of the highlights or things that I like about it.
This is probably one of the most unique laptops thanks to its hinge which allows you to detach
the display and use it as a tablet.
This means that the new 10th gen Intel processor is built into the tablet portion, but at the
same time, the keyboard portion holds an extra battery and an updated 1650 Max Q graphics
card for extra graphics performance.
Along with that, the magnesium body and the build quality is great and it really does
look like a nice and premium laptop.
The display is nice, sharp and color accurate with a 3:2 aspect ratio which is great for
web browsing and using as a tablet.
It’s got a nice variety of ports as well, and the keyboard is probably one of the best
that I’ve ever used.
The front-facing camera is excellent, packing Windows Hello for automatic login, and it
even has an 8MP camera on the back.
It’s also nice that you get WiFi 6 connectivity as well.
So overall, it’s a very premium device with up to date specs and a lot of flexibility
to use as a laptop or use as a tablet.
But my big issue with this 2 in 1 is that in the past 3 years, the competition has gotten
so much better, while the Surface Book hasn’t really changed at all.
The hinge hasn’t been redesigned or slimmed down, so you still have that gap in between
both portions. It’s still just as large and bulky as before. The display still has
fairly large bezels. There’s still no Thunderbolt 3 port, and in fact, the ports haven’t changed
at all. And with all of that, it’s more expensive than before.
So Microsoft basically took the easy route and simply swapped out a couple of internals
and called it good.
But let’s disregard all of that and just look at it for what it is, a premium 2 in
1 laptop. My issue with it is that it tries to do a lot of different things, but it doesn’t
do one specific thing very well, at least not $2000 well.
Like for example, using it as a tablet.
It’s light and thin, but the bezels are pretty large, especially if you’re trying
to watch a video or a movie. The quality and color accuracy of the display is great, but
it’s very reflective at the same time.
It’s nice that it’s packing Intel’s latest 10th-Gen i7 CPU, but because the tablet
portion is so thin, the performance is greatly limited to keep the temps down and extend
battery life.
Even the base MacBook Pro for $1300 which packs the old 8th-gen i5 chip scored around
24% higher than the Surface Book 3 in Cinebench R20, and that’s with all of the settings
set to best performance.
So this is the lowest score we’ve seen for this chip out of the many laptops we’ve
tested that have the same i7 processor, so it sucks knowing that if you’re wanting
to do something like photo editing or other CPU-dependant work.
And even though the Surface Book 3 has all of those ports, you don’t get any of them
on the actual tablet portion itself.
But by far the worst thing about it is the speakers, which are incredibly quiet compared
to everything else on the market, so while you can use this tablet to watch a movie,
the speakers are just terrible, so looking at the Surface Book 3 from a tablet perspective,
there are much better options on the market.
Now if you’re looking at it from a laptop perspective, it’s larger and bulkier than
the competition because of the detachable hinge design and the performance is worse
than much thinner and lighter laptops that have better speakers, keyboards, and trackpads.
And I experienced issues where the keyboard and trackpad would be unresponsive when reconnecting
the tablet, so I’d either have to close and open the display or disconnect and reconnect
it again to get it to work.
A major selling point of the Surface Books are the dedicated graphics.
The GTX 1650 graphics card offers a lot of performance for getting productivity work
done, but because of the 2 in 1 design with the thin tablet, the processor’s very limited
performance is going to bottleneck the graphics card in things like video editing, graphics
rendering, photo editing and more so the extra graphics power kinda goes to waste.
And in terms of using the graphics card for gaming, the 3:2 aspect ratio display isn’t
a good fit, it’s pretty expensive for a gaming laptop, and it’s only a 60hz display,
so there are much better options for gaming, even for those who want a premium laptop,
like the Razer Blade Stealth 13.
Or if you just care about gaming, there’s the $1300 HP Omen which comes with a much
more powerful RTX 2060 and a 144hz display.
And with that laptop, you can actually take off the case and upgrade everything from the
M.2 SSD and the RAM, to the battery and even the option to add your own 2.5” SSD.
With the Surface Book 3, you literally can’t upgrade anything at all due to the design,
which was pretty awesome in 2017, but now in 2020, it’s just not that special anymore.
And if you want this model with the i7 and the GTX 1650 graphics card, you’re paying
$2000 and only getting a 256GB SSD, which isn’t upgradable.
The market for the Surface Book 3 is very small. You’d have to want a large touchscreen
tablet with an x86 processor. You’d have to not care about speaker quality at all.
And you’d also have to want a laptop with a great keyboard and a dedicated graphics
card for limited productivity work that doesn’t need great processor performance or maybe
some gaming on the side.
And honestly, that’s a pretty specific market and considering how good the competition has
gotten over the last 3 years I have a hard time seeing how many people the surface book
3 would be great for.
We now have the Magic Keyboard case for the iPad Pro so if you need a capable tablet that
can also be used as a basic laptop it's great, or if you want dedicated graphics in a small
laptop the Razer Blade Stealth 13 packs that in a smaller and lighter package with lots
of improvements over the years.
Or if you don’t need graphics power, the Dell XPS 13 is also a much better choice in
practically every way and for less money, and even Microsoft’s own Surface Laptop
3 is a great laptop if you want that 3:2 display.
Or if you want a tablet with an x86 chip, there’s the Surface Pro 7 as well.
The Surface book 3 tries to do a lot of things but its basically a jack of all trades, master
of none, and one with a big price tag. I love the concept of a powerful GPU in the keyboard
and having a detachable tablet but this is a 2017 product competing in 2020.
Personally, I wouldn’t recommend the Surface Book 3 for most, because the cons far outweigh
the pros, and the new components aren’t able to be used to their full potential because
of the 2 in 1 design that limits cooling performance and sacrifices portability.
It would have been different If Microsoft slimmed it down, or added better speakers,
or maybe even just lowered the price to be more competitive but they didn’t.
If you chose to buy the Surface Book 3, let us know why you did down in the comment section
below, we want to know how you use it and why you chose it over the competition.
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