Forum member hands on reviews of the Surface Book

[leeshor]

What are your first impressions and thoughts about your new Surface Book

 

[doublestack1]

Just brought mine home from the MS Store. Details and mini review to follow later this evening.

 

[SeanP]

Received mine this AM very early from FedEx. Have had it now for almost 4 hours. My impressions:

1. The Keyboard is EXCELLENT. Love the feel and responsiveness.
2. The screen is amazing. Very bright..sitting in sunroom on bright day and zero issues right now with glare.
3. Love the Hello Feature logging in with facial recognition
4. The release of the screen is a little different and more difficult than I had anticipated based on reviews. I had to attempt it twice as it was tough to remove the first time and magnets kept the left side from releasing. I'd recommend being very careful that you don't use too much force and it goes flying out of your hands.
5. Netflix on this as well as couple movies that I have downloaded are amazing. Crisp and bright..best I have used including Mac Pro Retina
6. Battery cannot be tested yet but I am fully charged and running it down now.
7. Chrome is giving me problems...keeps restarting and not working.
8. Trackpad is big and very responsive. I has frozen on me a couple times so we will see on that.
9. Wish they had the setting button on the keyboard. Miss that from my SP3
10. Screen detached is very light. Love the feel. Together it's heavier than I anticipated.
11. Pen is responsive and works great. Love the fact you flip it around to erase. Perfect.
12. This just looks like a premium device. I can see why they charged what they did.

All of this of course is very early. A good week with it and traveling with it will be the best test. I will be on the road Tues-Friday for a good test.

Also, I have two chargers for my SP3 that I will be passing off so wondering if they will work properly with the Surface Book from a wattage standpoint.

I really hope this machine will not give people major hiccups. My SP3 never seemed to run well the entire year that I had it. Every time there was an update something else wouldn't work on it. Basically, this is my last attempt on giving MS this kind of run and $. I am not an Apple fan at all so I want this to be great. I need it to be great. I recommend devices to company once I test them. Couldn't recommend SP3 and was ready to turn to Apple iPad pro but glad I gave this a shot..for now. We will see.

 

[BearFlag]

8. Trackpad is big and very responsive. I has frozen on me a couple times so we will see on that.

I've seen this complaint posted by other reviews too (Reddit). I hope it will be fixed with some software updates.

 

[doublestack1]

So far my track pad has not frozen. It is not 100% responsive which I hope will be resolved in future updates. My system did freeze which required a power down via the power button for 30 seconds. It occurred while renaming my computer. Just froze half way through typing the new name.

• The keyboard is excellent. Better than my mid 2011 MacBook Air.
• Screen is beautiful
• Detach and reattached seems to be working well. No issues thus far
• Tablet mode with screen reversed on keyboard is easier to hold / use than one of the reviewers had reported, IMO
• Seems to take a long time to recharge but I love the duel battery meters and expected full time
• Speakers are louder than I thought they would be. Clear and great for system sounds, background music, etc.
• While typing this I received a notification my display driver stopped working but was resolved. Very strange (i7 256 w/ GPU). Need to keep an eye on that one
• Hello feature is awesome. Works a lot better than I thought it would

I will report back later next week after I do some traveling with it.

Now I need to find a good case / sleeve and hopefully a third-party kickstand when using in clipboard mode on a plane, etc.

 

[sharpuser]

I have spent several hours with my new Surface Book i7 512.

• Best part is the hinge. I'm a heavily-traveled user, including the outdoors. This hinge is tough. The locking mechanism is solid. The design is such that a hand grip to carry the Book feels natural and secure. Similar to picking up a good book.
• Keyboard is superb.
• Display is a whole different world. I am a MacBook Retina guy, with a couple of sharp retinas myself. The screen is fantastic.
• The Surface Book is an elegantly-engineered machine. When closed, a small magnetic draw keeps the book from flopping open.
• Love the pen, and the way it strongly attaches to the Book. The magnet is in the pen, not the Book, which makes it easy to stick the pen on various items around your workspace, but might bring risk of erasing credit cards or hotel key cards, in certain circumstances.
• No software or apparent firmware problems so far. Have done a few cycles of power and updates.
• Speakers are very good. (Click here for separate post).

Did I mention that the best part is the Hinge?



If you've shopped in a store for laptops, you have likely opened and closed and picked up devices and immediately inspected the hinge design, wondering how soon it would warp or bend or break. No problem with the Surface Book hinge.

Microsoft just changed the game.

 

[BearFlag]

• Best part is the hinge. I'm a heavily-traveled user, including the outdoors. This hinge is tough. The locking mechanism is solid.

What about the wobble? Does that bother you at all, especially if your typing on your lap or on a commute (train, plane, etc.)?

 

[sharpuser]

Wobble does not bother me at all. I have the Book on a cushioned ottoman right now. The screen touch is so responsive and the keyboard attachment to the screen is so solid, that I wouldn't even call it wobble. No problems.

My 512 machine has 1TB, because I have a 512 GB SD card in the full-size slot. I copied my OneDrive files to it, then to the Surface Book drive to speed the transfer of machines.

Note: My 66GB of OneDrive data took 19 minutes to write to the SD card from the SP3, and 11 minutes to copy to the Surface Book from the SD card. Good performance.

 

[SeanP]

While typing this I received a notification my display driver stopped working but was resolved. Very strange (i7 256 w/ GPU). Need to keep an eye on that one

Happened to me 4 times this afternoon. Message comes up, machine stutters for a second, then is resolved.

 

[sharpuser]

A screen shot. Happy to say that the pen top button (grey, no longer purple) worked first time.

 

[sharpuser]

The trackpad is about the same size and feel as the pad on my as MacBook Pro 15 Retina. I feel no urge to hunt down my mouse.

Hello, volume keys. Have been needing you. And when screen is detached, I see volume keys on the top edge, where they belong.

 

[fonzman78]

What about the wobble? Does that bother you at all, especially if your typing on your lap or on a commute (train, plane, etc.)?

I don't think the wobble is a big deal. I've tested typing while on my lap several times now and I really don't notice it. Reality is, when it's on your lap and you are typing, your wrists rest on the bottom and this added weight keeps the wobble to a minimum. When I let take my hands off, it lifts off a little but doesn't topple over or anything.