LAPTOP SPECIAL For the Love of Design & Workmanship

You don’t normally see the Microsoft logo on a lot of laptops — though that’s not for a lack of trying. The Surface Book range has been kind of niche, commanding a premium for design and materials and therefore appealing to a small section of well-heeled Windows users. This new range is adding top-notch performance and fresh design into the mix.

SURFACE BOOK 2

It may not look like it, but the Surface Book 2 is a hybrid (2-in-1) machine. We say this because the design integrates the screen and base in a seamless manner with an elegantly designed hinge. The touchscreen section is detachable from the keyboard and can be used independently (all the components are in the screen section itself). It’s also compatible with the Surface Pen — a digital, pressure sensitive stylus that design professionals will find many uses for. The keyboard section houses a second battery which stretches the battery life to an incredible 14 to 15 hours on a charge. Tablet only will last 4 to 5 hours on a charge. Obviously these numbers will drop if you tax it heavily but it is capable of awesome performance including photo/video editing and all the latest games.

The touchscreen is high resolution (3000 x 2000 pixels on the 13.5-inch and 3240 x 2160 pixels on the 15-inch) and very responsive. We got a chance to briefly try out the Surface Dial too. The Dial is a tactile Bluetooth accessory that you can place on the table or on the screen itself (provided you keep the screen flat on a table). You can rotate or click it to perform actions in different apps — it’s an additional, intuitive way to interact with the machine apart from keyboard, trackpad and Surface Pen.

There are a handful of machines in the 2-in-1 space, starting from as low as ₹40k. But there’s nothing in the super premium range, especially when you want no compromise on performance. The Surface Book 2 fills that need but the asking price puts it at the top of the price pyramid. In terms of ports, it has two full size USB 3.1 ports, SD card slot, a USB type C port and Surface Connector. Honestly though, we’re not big fans of the way it detaches. You have to press and hold a dedicated key on the keyboard and wait for a green LED notification. You hear a clicking mechanism as a set of magnets release the screen — you can then pull the screen away from the base. You can also place it back on the base backwards, to allow for the various modes like other 2-in-1s (laptop, tablet, studio, view).

SURFACE LAPTOP

Surface laptop is a more traditional form factor laptop but a very nice one — with premium feel and materials. It’s a slim and lightweight design with a soft touch alcantara fabric on the inside. The fabric is laser cut around the keys and gives it a unique ‘warm’ feel rather than the typical feel of cold metal. It weighs just 1.25kg and has a high resolution (2256 x 1504 pixels) touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio. This aspect ratio is more suited to web and documents rather than multimedia.

The keyboard is perfect with even backlighting and nice travel. The screen is great and performance is great for most work (excluding gaming). Ports are limited: one USB 3.1, mini DisplayPort, 3.5mm jack and Surface Connector. Another downside is that Surface Laptop is powered by Windows 10 in S mode. Microsoft says that this version of Windows is streamlined for security and performance but it is restrictive because it limits you to apps from Microsoft’s store. You can only use Microsoft Edge as the browser and Bing as the search engine.

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