Microsoft Surface Book 2: All You Need To Know

Microsoft has announced it’s latest high-end laptop: the Surface Book 2 and this is a detailed breakdown of everything we know so far about the Surface Book 2.

The first Surface Book was pretty impressive when it was first released; now, the company has updated the 13-inch and added a 15-inch version to the mix.

Microsoft Surface chief Panos Panay, while introducing the Surface Book 2 in an official blog post, described it as “the most powerful Surface laptop yet”.

There’s a new-gen Intel 8th-gen ‘Coffee Lake’ Core processor onboard, complemented by GeForce GTX 1050 and 1060 discrete graphics options.

According to Microsoft, this makes the Surface Book 2 “five times more powerful than the original and…twice as powerful as the latest MacBook Pro.”

In terms of battery life, Microsoft is boasting “all-day battery life” for the Surface Book 2, which is measured as “17 hours of video playback” – or 70% more than the latest MacBook Pro.

The screen detaches to become a standalone tablet and can be held with one hand. It can last for up to 5 hours on its own. Then, you can clip it back onto the Surface Book 2 backwards and use it as a thicker, heavier tablet.

Microsoft says that it’s redesigned the Surface Book’s signature hinge so that it’s stronger, more reliable and faster to release the tablet portion. The keyboard and trackpad also make it very comfortable to type and mouse around.

Here are the full specs for both the 13-inch and 15-inch devices.

13.5-inch Surface Book 2

• Dual-core up-to 3.5GHz Intel Core i5 (fanless) base-spec CPU
• Quad-core up-to 4.2GHz Intel Core i7 top-spec CPU
• Intel 620 base-spec GPU
• 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 top-spec GPU
• 256, 512GB or 1TB SSD storage
• 13.5-inch 3000×2000 touchscreen
• Weight: 1.53kg
• 23mm thickness
• 8-16GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 memory
• Ports: 2x USB 3.0-A, USB-C, 3.5mm headset, Surface Connect, SDXC
• Security: Windows Hello camera
• 17 hours video playback
• Up for preorder in the US on November 9 and shipments will commence on November 16
• Starts at $1,499

15-inch Surface Book 2

• Quad-core up-to 4.2GHz Intel Core i7 base-spec CPU
• Intel 620 base-spec GPU
• 6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 top-spec GPU
• 256, 512GB or 1TB SSD storage
• 15-inch 3240×2160 touchscreen
• Weight: 1.9kg
• 23mm thickness
• 8-16GB 1833MHz LPDDR3 memory
• Ports: 2x USB 3.0-A, USB-C, 3.5mm headset, Surface Connect, SDXC
• Security: Windows Hello camera
• 17 hours video playback
• Up for preorder in the US on November 9 and shipments will commence on November 16
• Starts at $2,499