SURFACE LAPTOP 2
Microsoft’s professional clamshell resurfaces with Windows 10 and a new CPU.
The original Surface Laptop from Microsoft was a gallant first attempt in the professional ultrabook space, but it was too light on power to be useful for creatives and Windows 10 S was a bit restrictive for a professional laptop (it works much better on the new Surface Go 2-in-1 tablets). Fast forward a year however and Microsoft has transformed the Surface Laptop line from a promising category into a refined and on point device that meets all of our initial expectations.
The heart of the new Surface Laptop 2 is a quad-core Intel processor which starts with a Core i5-8250U (there’s no Core m3 model this year) and ranges to include a Core i7-8650U (the same CPU on Microsoft’s gaming-capable Surface Book 2 tablet). This power jump isn’t just clear on paper, we pegged a 78% boost in multi-threaded CPU power on Cinebench R15 from the last generation’s i5 model. This means that instead of stumbling when running Windows 10 Pro (as the initial Surface Laptops did after upgrading from 10S) you can actually now fire up a photo editing suite with a few Chrome tabs open and you’ll still have plenty of processing power left in the tank.
Other than the updated CPU not a lot has changed in the new Surface Laptop. Actually, that’s an understatement; appart from a new Black colour scheme and the updated CPU, everything is identical to the original. It’s got the same squarish aluminium chassis and uses the same soft Alcantara finish on the bottom inside edge. It occupies the exact same 30.8 by 22.3cm footprint, folds to the same 1.4cm maximum thickness and weighs an identical 1.252kg. It even uses the same 13.5-inch 3:2 PixelSense display at the same 2256 x 1504 pixel resolution. And yet, despite all this sameness, we couldn’t be happier with it.
The responsive 1.5mm travel and subdued tap of the surface Laptop 2’s keys makes it a joy to type on and the soft Alcantara keyboard surround and malleable beveled edge make it exceptionally comfortable to rest your palms on while typing. Marry this with a powdery and generously sized center trackpad and a perfectly weighted laptop hinge that makes the 10-point touch screen easy to adjust and yet sufficiently sturdy, and you have a laptop that is blissfully easy to use.
The Surface Laptop 2 keeps a standard Surfacelike port configuration, omitting the USB Type-C port entirely. This seems to be a sticking point for many, but it’s not really as big a deal as it gets made out to be. The Surface Pro 2’s single USB 3.0 Type-A port, Mini DisplayPort and 3.5mm headphone jack are a good balance of essential interface options that’ll offer the easiest solution for 90% of the things you’ll need to connect. If you absolutely need USB-C for an external monitor then you can purchase a Surface Port to USB-C Adapter for $110 and if you want a full dock arrangement then Microsoft’s Surface Dock offers an impressive selection of connections for just $300.
The Surface Laptop 2 comes in 4 colours (Black, Burgundy, Cobalt Blue and Platinum), can be configured with either 8GB or 16GB of RAM, and offers 128GB, 256GB, 512GB or 1TB storage capacities. Whilst there are some additional limitations on configurations if you go for any colour other than Platinum, the 8GB RAM setup gives a choice of i5 or i7 CPU, with either a 128GB or 256GB storage capacity for a cost of $1,499, $1,999 or (i7) $2,499. The 16GB RAM configuration only comes with a Core i7 CPU and either 512GB or 1TB of
“The heart of the new Surface Laptop 2 is a quad- core Intel processor which starts with a Core i5- 8250U and ranges to include a Core i7-8650U. ”
storage, for $3,299 or $3,999 respectively.
For reference a quad-core i5 MacBook Pro (2018) starts at $2,699 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and you can get a 2018 Razer Blade Stealth with a Core i7, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for $2,669. We’ve even seen a Dell XPS 13 (i7-8550U, 16GB, 512SSD) go for as little as $2,209 on sale. So while the Surface Laptop 2’s prices look good against Apple, they’re pretty standard launch prices against any other competitor.
Microsoft has really locked down the thermals and processor of the Surface Laptop 2, with the CPU and GPU of the i5 model we tested keeping itself under 73º and 67º across all of our testing. Since this device is missing the usual ‘Performance’ or ‘Balanced’ power modes and all options for CPU optimisation have been hidden, you can’t push this CPU any further. We did see some issues with the 2017 Surface Pros maxing out at 97-100º (which is way too hot), but keeping a CPU below 73º at all times is an underutilisation of its full potential. That said, the core CPU performance results are roughly where they should be with the Surface Laptop 2 scoring within 15% (either way) of an identically specced Acer Spin 5 on Cinebench R15 CPU and HWBot’s x265 media encoding benchmarks — even though the latter ran much hotter, spiking to 95º. So this is clearly an Intel thermal constraint rather than anything Microsoft is responsible for.
What was disappointing was that we saw PCMark 8 benchmark results that were 20% lower than last year’s i5 Surface Laptop results in the Home test. This result starkly contradicts our real world testing however, where the Surface Laptop 2 felt far snappier and more responsive than the original. That said, the lower clock speed, higher boost speed of the new i5-8250U has been reported to slow down over longer CPU tasks relative to its predecessor.
The model we tested had a 256GB Skhynix SSD that netted read and write scores of 1643.8MB/s and 811.7MB/s respectively. This aren’t the fastest NVMe speeds we’ve come across, but it’s two to three times faster than a SATA connected SSD. And whilst graphical performance isn’t really a selling point of this device, we were able to get light games like Rocket
League to run above 30fps in 1080p High Performance mode. That said, you’d probably want to drop the resolution down little for better appearance overall.
The more efficient chip means battery life on the Surface Laptop 2 is better than the original under high intensity workloads. In PCMark 8’s demanding Home battery benchmark the Surface Pro 2 lasted 6 hours and 7 minutes while its predecessor got just 4:47 hours. However when it comes to 1080p movie playback, the Surface Laptop 2 died 40 minutes earlier at 8 hours and 8 minutes.