- The Microsoft Surface Laptop 2
has been on the market now for a few weeks,
I already did a full review that's on Windows Central,
but today we're gonna give you
a video review and a follow up to it.
I'll tell you what I think including
that new pricing, stay tuned.
(electronic music)
All right, before we get started,
so the original Surface Laptop
came out just over a year ago
so it's a little weird to see a refresh this soon.
Not really complaining here,
just it's hard to predict Surface devices
and when they get refreshed.
So the only thing that's really different this year
is the processor, it's been upgraded
to the eighth generation Intel series,
so that is now Quad-Core, that's Core i5 and Core i7.
Of course as you can see the other big changes,
it now comes in black and they got rid
of that weird champagne color
which probably just didn't sell well.
And the black is super awesome looking.
I was sort of skeptical of this color
as you heard me talk about before,
but it looks really nice in black.
But there are also a lot of subtle other changes
that have come with this refresh,
it overall makes the package really enticing,
also the pricing has come down a little bit
and they got rid of that Core m3 version
which always was a weird device,
it was cheaper but it also didn't have great performance.
Looking at the top deck you can see the matte black finish
is super nice looking,
now I should warn people as always,
the Surface Laptop in my opinion
is one of the more scratchable devices,
so if you were to do light scratch on this,
well yeah, it would show silver below it.
It's a pretty sturdy device but I still consider it soft,
I would baby the heck out of this
if you buy one of them,
you do not want to absolutely scratch this.
Another good color of course is gonna be the burgundy red,
that's other one I would recommend over this.
Now turn to the left hand side,
well not a lot of ports and we'll address this later, too.
But there's a USB type A, so pretty standard,
you also have a Mini DisplayPort
which is getting kind of old, 2018.
You also have a 3 1/2 millimeter headset jack in
as you can see here,
this is the antenna line which is why that cutout exists.
On the right hand side you don't have much either,
just the Surface connect port for charging.
Take a look at the bottom you can see
this continuation of this clean minimalist look
of the Surface Laptop, just really, really nice.
No stickers or anything,
just a little bit of a Microsoft on there.
And you do have the back grill
which works for the venting so that's the intake
and then it blows out through another slit just above it.
Overall this is a really nice, clean, symmetrical look.
Take a look at the 13 1/2 inch display,
there's not a lot changed here either,
it is 3 by 2 aspect ratio which we expect
with all Surface devices,
it has the weird resolution of 2256 by 1504,
which gives you a 201 pixel per inch density.
It's a really nice display, very color accurate,
we got around 100% Adobe sRGB for it, so really nice,
the display brightness is okay,
it's around just over 300 nits,
around 340 nits is what we got.
That is below Surface Pro, in fact,
everything about this display is sort of below
what the Surface Pro is
which has a tighter and higher resolution
and a higher pixel density
as well as an enhanced mode for color reproduction.
Now I really like the way this display looks,
it is touch, of course,
and you can use pen with it,
although it's not a really great experience
since the display doesn't go back,
but I do wish it was a little bit more punchy.
On the Surface Pro you do get an enhanced mode
which gives you a stronger color contrast.
They don't do that on Surface Laptop,
that's partially because this display is so thin,
it's one of the thinnest they've ever made on the market
and so I think there are some trade offs
in having to do that.
Now looking at the bezels here,
I don't really make a place about these bezels,
I think it's a really nice balance.
You do get a Windows Hello camera on the top here,
five megapixel.
If you're into making Skype calls and using a webcam,
this is still one of the best cameras
you can get on the market,
in fact the whole surface range is like that,
so if you're really into color clarity and resolution,
this is just a really nice experience.
I should also mention, again, like the Surface Pro,
they've improved the resume times here
for using Windows Hello.
So from the time you open the device 'til you're logged in,
is super, super fast, it's quicker than last year's model.
It's a subtle change,
it has to do with the architecture
that they use on this device.
But it's just a really nice experience.
You're never waiting for it to turn on.
All right, looking at the keyboard deck, again,
nothing is different this year,
1 1/2 millimeter travel on this keyboard.
Multi-stage back-lighting,
one of the best typing experiences you will get.
They did actually make a subtle change here
which is the keyboard is quieter than last year's model.
I have a little hesitation there in my voice
because I never complained
that the Surface Laptop's keyboard was loud.
I guess it is subtly more quiet,
I won't complain about it, but it's not something
you're gonna drastically notice.
(keyboard clicks)
Looking at the track pad, still really nice size here,
no complaints, precision drivers,
really nice feel to it, again,
one of the best track pad experiences you'll get
on any laptopped PC.
Not quite as good as a MacBook Air,
not nearly as big as the MacBook Air's,
but still pretty nice.
You also get the new Alcantara deck here
so this is from last year's model
but now we get it in black which matches really well.
If you're really concerned about discoloration
of this fabric over time,
the black one is gonna be your choice.
It'll show less stains.
The platinum version, however, is probably the one
that has the most stainability,
so I would stay clear of that
if you're actually worried about it.
Burgundy, cobalt, are also nice as well.
All right, let's talk about the processor.
So you get a Core i5 8250u here,
or you can get a Core i7 8650u.
If I had to choose one, I would get the Core i5.
I see little reason to get the Core i7
unless you really, really need to use it
for all that processing power.
I don't think most people do.
The Quad-Core one here performs very well.
To put it into perspective here,
we'll show you all the Geekbench results.
So the Surface Laptop 2 Core i5
basically outperforms the Core i7 version
from last year, so it's a little bit slower on single core,
and that's a Core i5 versus i7 so that's expected,
but the Quad-Core part really makes up
on the multi-core score where you're gonna see
a huge improvement here on this device.
And that results in all sorts of cool side effects,
it's also better at battery.
So I did a PCMark battery run-down test
which is a little unrealistic,
it's just blasting through a bunch of tasks endlessly
until the battery dies.
So this pulled out about an hour and 20 minutes more
battery than the same model from last year,
running the older seventh generation processor,
so overall it's a more efficient system.
You're gonna get more processing power.
It's a really nice package,
one that is hard to see on paper,
but when you start using it, well it feels just,
I would say, ideal for most use cases.
When it comes to RAM, not a whole of selection here,
you get eight or 16 gigs,
which is pretty good, there's no four gig option
which of course we never like.
It is ddr3, that's just a restriction
that Intel has right now, it's in these boards here,
at least for the U-series processors,
we'll hopefully see ddr4 maybe next year.
When it comes to the SSD and storage here,
there's a lot of good news.
So it starts at 128 gigs, but it goes up to one terabyte.
They are using a Toshiba drive this time
and I have to admit the performance is much better.
So if you remember,
the Surface Laptop has SSD storage built
into the board itself, it's not a separate module,
and that results in that faster log in time
that I mentioned earlier.
The side effect was last year's model
had pretty slow read and write speeds,
it was around 500 megabytes per second
which I would say is below the class's device
and the price point we expect.
This year's model is 1,500 megabytes per second.
That's a huge improvement from last year's,
it just feels much, much faster.
Obviously 1,500 megabytes per second is still below
the prime stuff around 2,000 or even 3,000
but I'll take it, it's just a much better experience.
Now when it comes to the write speeds,
it's around 800 megabytes per second, again,
not super fast but fast for most of you.
That's also a huge improvement over last year's model
which was around 250 megabytes per second.
Again, that was a pretty slow version.
They did a lot of good here though,
with the new SSD and it totally works.
All right, let's bring it all in.
Not a lot of changes to the Surface Laptop 2,
yet all these small changes add up
to a really beautiful and solid experience.
I'm really enjoying using this laptop,
but there are some problems as you know.
For instance, there's no type C port or Thunderbolt 3,
that's supremely disappointing.
Now I agree, keeping Surface Connect is awesome,
I also love having USB type A,
but that mini display port just has no role
in my life anymore.
They got rid of it on Surface Studio 2.
I wish they got rid of it here,
that would have involved a lot more of a redesign though,
between the chassis and the board itself
and it clear Microsoft wanted to make this a mild refresh
which they did.
I think that we'll have to wait until next year's model
though if we want type C
and that's really a big bummer,
especially for the price point on this device,
which is higher than average,
but I'm actually happy to see that the price
is pretty good on this.
Now the model we have here is a Core i5,
eight gigabytes and 256 gigs of storage.
That's normally around $1300.
Microsoft is actually running it on sale for the holidays
though for 1,000 bucks.
That's a really solid price.
If I had to recommend you buy the Surface Laptop 2,
it would be this model.
It's just really good.
Now, obviously if you need more storage,
well you can get the 512 or one terabyte options as well,
but for most people, 256 should be good.
Now when you compare that to the brand new MacBook Air
which I'm using as well,
well that thing is $400 more expensive
when you take that sale price into account here
for an exact same specifications
plus you're getting a Y-series processor
in that model versus a U-series.
This is just a really great performer.
It's also gonna get very good battery life.
I already talked about the batter run-down test,
but real world usage,
I'm pushing eight to 10 hours on this thing
and it's just really satisfying to use.
I don't feel like I need to charge it all the time
which is really good.
I do wish there was a model for LTE, though,
I'm huge on this always connected PC thing.
There's still no LTE option for this,
which I think would make this a really exciting
device to have.
There's also no expandable storage
which for some people is gonna be a bummer.
It'd be nice to have a micro SD slot here somewhere,
but it's clear that Microsoft is prioritizing battery
here over just having a ton of ports
and they also want that really clean look.
Other than that though, the Surface Laptop 2
is a surprising winner for me.
Like the Surface Pro 6, all these small changes
just make a really delightful experience.
And that's why you buy the Surface Laptop,
if you want the best of Windows
and everything that just makes you happy
when you turn it on,
well this is gonna be your device.
It's not the fastest on the market,
doesn't have the most ports on it,
it's not the cheapest either, it's just the most fun
and delightful to use and well, that matters to some people.
All right, so there's a quick look at the Surface Laptop 2,
now if you want more information about this,
you can also go to my full review at Windows Central,
we'll have a lot more detail on this.
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Thanks for watching, take care everyone.