Hands on with Microsoft’s New Surface Book and Surface Pro 4: Watch Out, Apple

We expected Microsoft to roll out a new tablet on Tuesday, and it did: The Surface Pro 4 tablet. What we didn’t expect was that Microsoft would also unveil its first-ever laptop, but it did that, too: The Surface Book, a laptop-tablet hybrid that’s aimed squarely at Apple’s MacBook Pro.

After the press event, I got a chance to spend some hands-on time with both of these new Windows 10 machines. Here’s what I thought.

Surface Book

As noted, while Microsoft’s Surface Book is billed as the company’s very first laptop, it’s actually more than that, because its 13.5-inch display can be detached from its keyboard base and used as a standalone tablet.

When used as a laptop, the Surface Book is a high-powered machine. It can be equipped with Intel’s latest 6th-generation Core i-series processors and up to 16 GB of RAM. There’s even a dedicated Nvidia graphics chip for those graphically intensive programs like video editing apps.

But here’s the twist: That graphics chip lives in the Surface Book’s keyboard base. That means that, when you disconnect the tablet from the Book’s keyboard, you cut some of its processing capabilities. 

That makes sense, when you think about it: Chances are you aren’t going to be doing a lot of 3D graphics editing while lounging on your couch with a tablet. You can, however, still stream movies and play tablet games just fine.

In my brief hands-on time with the Surface Book, I found its screen to be every bit as beautiful as the wonderful panel found on Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3.

As a tablet, the Surface Book is ridiculously thin and light: It weighs just 1.6 pounds. When combined with its keyboard base, the whole package weighs in at 3.34 pounds, which is still lighter than Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Pro (which weighs 3.48 pounds).

As a laptop, the Surface Book is a bit thick (0.90 inches); the MacBook Pro is just 0.71 inches thick. The Surface Book’s greater girth is due largely to its unique hinge, which doesn’t allow the Book’s display to lie flat on its keyboard.