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Microsoft Announces the Surface Book

btarunr

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Microsoft announced its very first laptop, the Surface Book. It's Microsoft's imagining of the Surface with the strengths of a proper laptop. Microsoft claims at weight-by-weight, this is the most powerful 13-inch class laptop ever made. What sets it apart from other performance laptops in its class is that it's a convertible. You can detach the top half from the bottom, and use it like a large Surface tablet; or you could dock it with its base in either direction, and get the advantage of a proper mechanical keyboard, a multi-touch trackpad, additional battery (up to 12 hours), and additional connections.

The two halves join at a curious looking spinal joint, and an electric muscle joint that senses when you're trying to detach the two halves, and makes the process effortless. When it senses that you aren't trying to take them apart, it lends enough grip to let you lift both halves by holding one of them. The top half features a 13.5-inch display with a high-precision multi-touch touchscreen that's primed for Microsoft Pen (a smart stylus with 1024 pressure levels and high drawing resolution); with 267 ppi display resolution. Both halves are made out of milled aluminium, and are about 7.5 mm thick, each. Most of the hardware is located in the top half, while most of the battery is located in the bottom one. Microsoft has taken advantage of modern connectivity such as 4G LTE, 802.11 ac WLAN, USB 3.0 type-C, SDXC, and more.



What makes this the most powerful notebook is what's under the hood - a 6th generation Intel Core i7 "Skylake" processor, discrete NVIDIA GeForce GTX "Maxwell" graphics with dedicated GDDR5 memory, 16 GB of DDR4 memory, and 1 TB of storage. It comes pre-loaded with Windows 10, Office 2016, and a the Windows Store app ecosystem. Pricing of the Surface Book starts at US $1,499.


Image Credit: Engadget

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pretty nice specs
 

cdawall

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$1499 with a standalone graphics would be pretty badass I feel like you will be adding about $1k to that price to get the one full equipped however. On the low end the Lenovo LaVie Z will be lighter. (1.87lbs)
 
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specs for a Surface is quite overkill... Skylake Core i7, a Maxwell Geforce GTX GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM & 1TB of space... definitely gaming ready with Win 10 preinstalled.
 
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specs for a Surface is quite overkill... Skylake Core i7, a Maxwell Geforce GTX GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM & 1TB of space... definitely gaming ready with Win 10 preinstalled.

Look at the form factor. It probably throttles a lot under a gaming load.
 
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Look at the form factor. It probably throttles a lot under a gaming load.
Surface Pro 3 with a i7 throttles under load to a i3/i5 performance. Totally useless, i5 would suffice.
 
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Tegra X1 in Google Pixel C laptop
GRID in Azure
Maxwell in Surface Book


 
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I was looking at the new XPS 13, but this is definitely going to take that place.
 
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Discrete Nvidia GPU is in the keyboard dock, while everything else is in the screen/tablet part. Both parts should be more than fine to not throttle.
 

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I was looking at the new XPS 13, but this is definitely going to take that place.

Why were you looking at the XPS 13? Its very overpriced and underperforming compared to the Asus zenbooks at the same price point, and if you want to argue size the Lenovo LaVai Z can be had in convertible for the same basic money.
 
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Discrete Nvidia GPU is in the keyboard dock, while everything else is in the screen/tablet part. Both parts should be more than fine to not throttle.

I was pondering that, but guessed wrong. That's nice!
 
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Why were you looking at the XPS 13? Its very overpriced and underperforming compared to the Asus zenbooks at the same price poin
You mean the THAT Asus Zenbook with the disgustingly thick screen bezel.
 
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The hinge looks over engineered IMO and its a bit of an eyesore too. It seems like an overt attempt to be different in an inane way like the Surface line's kickstand.

I'm glad they finally adopted the Asus like keyboard attachment dock for tablets and the GPU addition puts a nice spin on it (like when Asus added an SSD in the keyboard dock).

Very slick!

It puts the new iPad Pro in a very odd spot indeed,....
 
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It puts the new iPad Pro in a very odd spot indeed,....
The old Surface Pro 3 put the iPad pro in an odd spot, the Surface Book just obliterates it.
I'm waiting for reviews, but everything Microsoft announced today has been really interesting to say the least.
 

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Before everyone gets excited over the vague specs, this Skylake "i7" would be the i7-6500U, which is weaker than a desktop i3...

The dedicated graphics card could just be a 940m too.

Yeah, still pretty decent power for the form factor, but nothing that will blow me away.
 
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I'm not looking for a desktop replacement but a road productivity machine. Macbook looks better and is smaller/lighter. But this has ports. OK, interested.
 
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I'm not looking for a desktop replacement but a road productivity machine. Macbook looks better and is smaller/lighter. But this has ports. OK, interested.

and pen/touchscreen which macbook doesn't have.
 
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Why were you looking at the XPS 13? Its very overpriced and underperforming compared to the Asus zenbooks at the same price point, and if you want to argue size the Lenovo LaVai Z can be had in convertible for the same basic money.
It looks better, it has a better display and historically speaking, Dell's high-end devices (like XPS and Precision) have excellent build quality. I don't like Asus Laptops, and Lenovo is dead to me after the last 3 "malware" debacles they've had.

Why do you even care?
 

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It looks better, it has a better display and historically speaking, Dell's high-end devices (like XPS and Precision) have excellent build quality. I don't like Asus Laptops, and Lenovo is dead to me after the last 3 "malware" debacles they've had.

Why do you even care?

Was just curious I sell them and point people away from the xps everytime.
 
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How many MacBooks did they have in that design department, when they came up with this?
 
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Very nice, amazing accomplishment and solid engineering, however I'd rather have my laptop as a laptop and my tablet as a tablet.

I guess it depends on how sturdy and seamless the connection between the 2 parts is, because if its not solid enough and it will not feel like a real laptop it'll be a deal breaker.

Also I see that both the screen and the base are a bit thick while the side where they come together is even thicker.

More than this it will be interesting to see what the GPU actually is, as from the games presented on stage I was not impressed at all about the performance, but maybe they choose poorly the games. If it is GTX 960 level of performance it will be fantastic.

Either way I'm not really sold on the concept of the surface book, however I would really like to try the continuum, that looks pretty cool :)
 
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Looks like a quality unit. Its about time someone made a serious competitor for high end Mac style design, out of metal and not plastic.

I know plenty of people that bought Macs just because they looked better built than the others. Even when you tell them you can get better specs on a Windows device for the same money, they dont care....and thats why Apple is successful. Image and styling.

I would seriously consider this device. Its a great move by Microsoft. This makes Apple's Mac book and Ipad devices kind of outdated. Why have a Macbook and Ipad when you can have both
 
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aluminium body for the tablet (not keyboard) should let it dissipate heat well since the shell is basically a massive cooling plate. **update** The GPU however is based on Maxwell chip but can't be compared directly to any 900 series lineup, be it GT or GTX variants. let's wait for more info about the chip & of course a benchmark to see it's worth.
 
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Nice design but overpriced as shit. MacBook killa? Not likely
 
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I would rather have a full fledged laptop than this ultrabook.

The biggest elephant in the room is the Nvidia GPU which does not make sense, if you are trying to make a laptop with dGPU this laptop would probably need to have features ultrabooks do not have like ethernet port and more USB ports because I would not buy a laptop with bad-Ultrabook-like connectivity.

I have never used an Apple laptop and never will buy one but for layman I would recommend Apple laptop just because of the more trouble free OS that comes with it.
 
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