The first reviews of Microsoft’s new Surface Book are in – and it’s kind of a mixed bag.
Is the Surface really the ultimate laptop that Microsoft claims it is? Nearly. I say that because sometimes I’m using the Surface Book and I just wish Microsoft had made a pure laptop. The display wobble can be irritating, and the weird gap when it’s closed means I have to clean the Surface Book every day. If Microsoft can fix the hinge in future versions and make it a lot less bulky then this could be great. It has a beautiful display, amazing battery life, and the keyboard and trackpad feel great. But even though that’s everything I want in a laptop, the accommodations Microsoft made to enable the tablet end up making the laptop experience less than ideal.
I had hoped for a pure laptop too – while I appreciate what Microsoft is trying to do, the compromises seem rather serious here, for something not a whole lot of people are going to use anyway. Joanna Stern agrees:
The design has some real flaws, though. The 3.3-pound, 0.9-inch-thick computer is chunkier than I’d like. And getting into it is like trying to crack a safe. The magnets that keep the system closed require you to throw too much back into it. Once you’re in, there’s a slight but unfortunate wobble in the display. This is related to that high-tech hinge that releases the screen when you press an eject key.
As for the Surface Pro 4? Well, it’s exactly the same as the Pro 3, but with some minor enhancements. If you didn’t like the idea of the Surface before, the Pro 4 won’t change your mind.
I know she is trying to use hyperbole, but I think this is overdoing it:
None of the first reviews mentioned it, then suddenly everyone started to mention it, all of them using the exact same word “wobble”. I guess this is one of those “once seen it cannot be unseen” things.
I don’t really get what is so special about the Book that makes the entry price so high. Yet nobody seems to complain about the price because they compare it to the MacBookPro and think “it offers something extra, charges something extra so the price seems fair”…I would argue that the MBP is overpriced and so is the Book.
I do like the fact that they are making a “revolutionary” product like the Book and an “evolutionary” product like the Surface Pro 4. The SP4 offers exactly what companies want: Upgraded hardware while remaining entirely back/forward compatible with accessoires. They made the screen bigger (and higher res) while making the machine thinner yet still made it fit in the same dock. The extra screensize and res also didn’t hurt the performance or battery life. And the new keyboards and pen are great upgrades that also work on the SP3. Fingerprint login: Now possible. Camera login: Possible. I think everyone is right in describing the SP4 as the perfected SP3. Of course it needs just one more thing before it can really be called “perfected”: 1 (extra) USB-C port
Moving on to PCI-SSD is greatly appreciated as well and is something that other companies should have done much earlier. Why don’t those companies do that? How can Microsoft actually produce such nice hardware while other companies almost entirely focus on updating existing productlines
The answer to your second question is the explanation for your first one… They don’t commodity price their products.
You were singling out the Surface Book for having a high entry price, but the Surface Pro is not “cheap” either. An entry level Surface Pro 4 is $1030 (everyone buys a touch cover – no point in pretending otherwise). The $470 difference in price for a Surface Book amounts to:
A Core i5 instead of a Core M
8GB of memory instead of 4GB
a larger screen
a better keyboard
33% more battery life
true laptop form factor
If you configure a SP4 with an i5 and 8GB of memory, it is $1330 w/keyboard. Now it is only a $170 difference – not that much all things considered…
Even the Surface 3 isn’t really cheap. Atom pricing in pretty close to ARM, and other than the processor it is pretty comparable on specs to other similarly sized ARM laptops, which routinely sell for hundreds less (even ignoring the extra you pay for a type cover)…
So yeah, they do charge quite a premium on the entire Surface line compared to most other companies products. That is why they can make nice hardware, because by actually charging a real margin and avoiding race-to-the-bottom pricing they can fund actual in-house engineering.
I totally get why people think the pricing is exorbitant, but all pricing is relative – and you have to consider what it is actually getting you. Those high margins are what makes unique and refined hardware possible.
I came to observe that the race to bottom produces throwaway laptops with cheap plastic bodies, integrated GPU, screen resolutions where one can count pixels and 2h battery life.
Hence why I only buy premium laptops, but even those are full of junk that replicate OS functionality like wlan and bluethoot selectors, for example.
I really hope this is a way of Microsoft showing the finger to OEMs about what means to produce proper consumer friendly products.