- [Announcer] This is Harold. - Hello,
- [Announcer] Harold has a hard time making decisions.
- I wasn't sure, so I bought everything lttstore.com.
- [Announcer] That's why Harold got the Surface Book 3.
- It's a laptop, it's a tablet
and it's as powerful as a desktop.
- Well, yes, but actually, no.
The Surface Book has been promising
to be the do everything device since 2015.
But the core of the design hasn't been updated since,
well, 2015 and I'm just not sure
if it still holds up five years later.
What do you think you are Microsoft, Intel?
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In 2015 I call this the first truly premium Windows machine,
and it does have a lot still going for it.
The feel of the device is exceptional,
and despite it's all metal, not to mention rigid chassis,
its somehow feels soft to the touch.
The problem is that the bezels, trackpad size,
and the overall design haven't aged well
compared to the MacBook Pro 16 or the new Dell XPS 15.
Of course, that ignores the Surface Book 3s
classic party trick that never gets old.
In theory, this is it, the best of both worlds.
Need to quickly go and take some notes,
grab the tablet and the pen
which are just so delightfully magnetically attached
to the side and you're good to go.
Need more power?
Well, additional battery capacity,
bring it up to nearly 12 and a half hours in our tests
and a dedicated graphics card are stored in the base along
with what we described as fairly decent IO
The dual USB Taipei's are welcome,
although we do wish they would have done something
about the incredibly poorly positioned headphone jack.
One notable IO improvement though is
that the surface dock accessory
now supports dual 4k 60 Hz displays
if you don't mind shelling out for that.
Back to the tablet releasing, though,
honestly, on the previous models,
I didn't find it very useful
because I'm an impatient kind of person.
For the tablet mode to be useful for me,
the detach needs to be quicker
than just unplugging the power mouse and display
that I have connected to the Surface Book at my desk,
and this is finally the case.
On the 13 and a half inch model,
the tablet releases twice as fast
and on the 15 inch, it releases three times faster.
Maybe more importantly, though, it does so consistently.
Previously, you'd have to close down any apps
that were using the dedicated GPU,
whereas now apps are automatically switched over
to the integrated GPU without you having to think about it,
for the most part, it's pretty slick.
To really put the Surface Book 3 versatility
to the test though,
we came up with an idea.
Alex, our laptop reviews editor,
recently had an unfortunate failure in his desktop
and it's actually broken right now.
So why don't you try replacing it with this for a bit.
For the first part of his job,
writing the surface Book 3 is exceptional.
Both Microsoft's Book and laptop products are equipped
with the killer one-two punch productivity combo
of an incredible keyboard,
and a three by two display
that back in 2015, Microsoft worked the competition with.
Since then, though,
Dell and HP have really improved their keyboards
and Apple has, well, they've really improved their keyboard.
So the Surface Book is now an A plus keyboard
in a crowded field of A or A plus keyboards
instead of a clear winner.
As for the display,
the 3240 by 2160 resolution monitor is essentially
a 4K display with the sides chopped off,
and I gotta say, it still looks really sharp,
and because it's a laptop and a tiny screen,
I didn't miss the extra pixels at all.
Now you are giving up the vivid colors
and the perfect blacks of the OLED display options
on some of its competitors,
but you are gaining what is still the best touch
and pen input available on Windows.
Like you can probably barely see it,
but there's just a tiny bit of spring in the pen tip
that gives it a really close to pen on paper feel,
instead of pen on glass,
like what you get from HP or Dell's pens.
Another area that Microsoft has lost ground
compared to the competition is the trackpad.
When the Microsoft precision touchpad drivers
were first introduced on the Surface Pro 2,
they were a statement.
They said hey, hello guys.
How have you still not managed to figure this out?
Well, whatever, we did it for you, mic drop out.
It was the first time we've used a Windows touchpad
that was comparable to the precision
and feel of Apple's offerings.
Since then, Microsoft's precision drivers
have become available on so many more devices, though,
that Microsoft no longer has
enhanced precision going for them.
And despite having ample space to grow,
the Surface Book still comes
with a tasty menu size trackpad,
when I couldn't get the full meal on the new XPS 15.
Make sure that you're subscribed by the way,
we're gonna have a full review of that coming soon.
While we're on the topic of things that Microsoft made,
that was awesome just for everyone else to do it better,
Windows Hello facial recognition, it is awesome, I love it.
And it returns to the Surface Book 3, right there baby.
But it's also now available on other devices,
in a super slim module allowing for much smaller bezels.
Where Microsoft is leading the competition though
is in the inclusion of a 1080p webcam.
That means that on video calls,
you will actually look like a person
instead of a smeary mess of pixels.
Thank you Microsoft
now I have someone credible to point to,
when I yell at other laptop manufacturers
about their crummy webcams.
Really does look good, doesn't it?
On two specs, the 13 and a half inch and 15 inch models
get up to GTX 1650 and 1660 Ti options respectively.
Both are Max-Q variants,
but that's still plenty of room for mid-tier gaming,
as long as you turn the resolution down.
The one we were really curious about though,
is the new surface for business version
with a Quadro RTX 3000.
For professionals whose programs require the Quadro drivers,
this one is a no brainer.
And for those that also enjoy gaming,
remember this is the same TU106 Chip as the RTX 2070,
just with reduced shaders and clocks
to bring the TDP down to 80 watts.
In our testing the GPU handle
our typical SolidWorks models well and even managed
our 8000 part Lego Millennium Falcon benchmark.
Huge shout out to Ryan Cole
for this ridiculous model by the way.
The GPU also held up well in gaming,
even if we can't say the same about the display.
This thing was clearly optimized for picture quality
and not for response time.
Although as long as you're a Cities: Skylines,
or an O player, rather than a Rainbow Six Siege fanatic,
you'll be fine.
Otherwise, just please buy something else.
And the CPU is, well, it's another problem.
The fastest model that you can get in the Surface Book 3,
is the Intel Core i7-1065G7,
and that's the same for core processor
as the Surface Laptop 3.
In most of our testing,
the Book 3 was still very responsive.
But as the competition is moving to six,
and even eight core processors,
the Surface Book 3 is left in the dust,
if you plan on rendering large video projects,
exploiting edited pictures, running simulations,
or even just being careless with your multitasking
and your junk running in the background.
There are just much faster machines out there,
not to mention the thermals.
During a blender render the temps got into the high 90s
with core clocks dipping below three gigahertz.
In practice, the i7-1065G7 still feels more than fast enough
outside of intense all core loads,
but given that we don't need the tablet functionality
that badly, a more powerful CPU makes our job easier.
Even when connected to a five Gigabit Ethernet dongle
and using GPU acceleration,
the poor CPU of the Surface Book 3 struggled
to playback red footage from our server
at one eighth resolution,
that's a deal breaker for us,
even if it has no applicability to you whatsoever.
The other deal breaker for some folks is going to be
the lack of serviceability on this machine
and the lack of Thunderbolt 3.
I sort of imagined this large overlap between people
who need a Quadro on their laptop
and people who would care about things like
serviceability and connectivity.
But Microsoft did actually address,
the lack of Thunderbolt 3 quite recently.
Apparently it's due to security concerns related
to Thunderbolts direct access to memory,
something that can cannot be patched by software in any way.
And they use the same logic
to explain why the Ram can't be removed and upgraded.
Fair enough, I guess.
So for those of you who are genuinely concerned
that someone is going to open up your laptop,
while it's still powered on,
use liquid nitrogen to freeze the memory,
and then use a special reader to access the data.
This is the laptop for you.
For those of us who aren't the unfortunate scientist
in Mission Impossible,
I would rather just be able
to upgrade the memory on my device down the line
and use Thunderbolt 3.
Which brings us to the toughest part of this review.
Do I recommend the Surface Book 3?
Most of this time has been spent talking about
how now five years later,
the competition has caught up to the Book 3,
and clearly Microsoft needs
to invest in a complete redesign in the coming years.
But the 2020 Book 3 is still a compelling device
for the right user,
someone or basically anyone,
who needs the tablet function
because no one else is gonna pay that premium.
The first, in our mind properly equipped config
for this thing, for the 13 and a half inch model actually
is around 2000 US dollars,
and our Quadro equip 15 inch,
that weighs in at around 3400.
That's a tough pill to swallow,
but at the same time,
what else you're gonna get an iPad Pro
with the magic keyboard?
For people who need both good pen support
and the muscle for real professional applications,
the Surface Book 3 is just really your only option,
assuming you need a bit more portability
than the Acer ConceptD 7.
For those that can live without the tablet functionality
and want a couple more CPU cores
and don't need a Quadro GPU,
hey, again, maybe wait for the full review
of the XPS 15 and 17
before I'm pulling the trigger on this guy.
Speaking of pulling the trigger,
I'm pulling the trigger on this Segway team
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If you guys enjoyed this video
and you're looking for something else,
Alex says shoot the webcam section please,
if you haven't already.
I did Alex.
I already showed on the webcam section.
So maybe check out, I don't know who cares.
We want to cool the calculator.
It's fun video, go watch it.
(upbeat music)