Microsoft Surface Book 2 is the device that Microsoft kept under wraps so well, for the unveiling that happened today. The latest laptop from MS comes in two sizes, will be sold from November and it’s priced at $1500 and up. We have all the deets below.
It’s been two years since the Microsoft Surface Book gen one came and now the high end laptop with detachable screen gets an encore. It’s true that it got a more powerful Surface Book i7 brethren last year, though… Now the whole thing gets a revamp via the Surface Book 2. There are actually two versions of the device launched this time around: one is a 13.5 inch MacBook Air rival with a 3.4 pound weight and the other is a more serious laptop with a 15 inch screen and a 4.2 pound weight.
Both laptops have in common the Intel Core i5-7300U dual core processor, but you can also opt for a Core i7-8650U quad core chipset, which comes bundled with an Nvidia GeForce 10 series graphics card. The smaller unit will receive the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 graphics with 2 GB of memory, while the 15 incher gets GTX 1060 graphics and 6 GB of memory.
Surface Book 2 13.5 inch offers a 3000 x 2000 pixel resolution, while the 15 incher has a more spectacular res of 3240 x 2160 pixels. These aren’t ordinary screens, but rather PixelSense panels, with 1600:1 contrast ratios and 3:2 aspect. Of course they play nice with the Surface Pen. Specs include 8 GB or 16 GB of RAM, up to 17 hours of battery life and WiFi ac, plus Bluetooth 4.1, two USB 3.1 Type-A ports and one USB Type-C 3.1 port, as well as an SDXC card reader.
Oddly, no trace of Thunderbolt 3 ports here. Authentication happens via Windows Hello, through the 5 MP front camera and there’s also an 8 MP back camera here. Surface Book 2 has stereo front facing speakers and dual microphones, as well as a magnesium chassis, typical of a Surface I’d say. Storage goes from 256 GB to 1 TB, SSD of course. Surface Book 2 goes on preorder on November 9th and ships a week later.
$1500 is the starting price for the 13 incher and $2500 for the 15 incher.
