Microsoft Surface Book 3
It’s niche and expensive, but the Surface Book 3 pulls off a dual identity that nothing else quite achieves
SCORE
PRICE £2,041 (£2,449 inc VAT) from microsoft.com
The Surface Book 3 is a unique proposition in today’s market: it looks like a regular laptop, but its 13.5in screen can be detached and used as a standalone tablet. As the name indicates, it’s Microsoft’s third system of this type, and while some aspects of the design have barely changed from the original 2015 model, other parts are wholly up to date.
Those include the processor – in this case, a tenth-generation Intel Core i7-1065G7 – and the graphics hardware, which comes in the form of an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU. Our test system came with 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, all of which drives the price up to the rather alarming figure quoted above – and if you want Windows 10 Pro rather than the standard Home edition you’ll need to drop an additional £80 for the “for Business” specification. Cheaper variantss are aavvaaiillaabbllee , bu t sadly they’re all limited to 256GB of storaa ge.
While the price is certainlly high, what it gets yyou is a very capablee system. With ann overall score of 91 in our desktopp benchmmarks, the Surfface Book 3 is one of this month’s fastest laptops, outpaced only by the six-core Dynabook and the overachieving Lenovo L14. Indeed, for graphical performance it’s way out in front: in the GFXBench Car Chase test, its Nvidia GPU averaged nearly tripled the frame rate of its nearest rivals. For visual arts professionals, Microsoft also offers models with larger 15in panels and Nvidia Quadro graphics.
EEven tthhe regullar 13.5iin screen ii s pleasant to work on. Like all Surface systems it has a convenient 3:2 aspect ratio, and its native resolution of
3,000 x 2,000 pixels equates to
267ppi. That means text and images look clean and pristine, and colour accuracy is flawless, per an average Delta E of 0.85.
This isn’t quite a perfect display, however. It doesn’t reproduce the full sRGB gamut, with coverage of only 90.6%, and its maximum brightness of 368cd/m2 is good rather than great. The bezels are on the thick side too: they provide a decent grip when using the Surface Book 3 in tablet mode, but it’s an open question whether that justifies the extra width and depth.
That’s not our only quibble with the hardware. The rounded hinge doesn’t hold the screen as firmly as you’d hope, resulting in a noticeable wobble when you prod thhe display with a ffinger – and it d o e sn ’ tt f o l d f u ll y f la t when thhe lid is closed, lleaving an ugly gapp between the botttom of the screen aand the top of the keybboard unit. The glass touchpad f e e ls a l itt l ee o n t he s ma l l side too at 104 x 70mm. Other limitations arise from the detachable design, which situates the Nvidia GPU and main battery in the keyboard base. This keeps the screen thin and light, for an agreeably breezy tablet experience; the trade-off is that when you detach the screen, the system has to fall back onto the far less powerful integrated GPU, and battery life plummets. We got a pretty good 9hrs 57min of video from the
SSurfface BBookk 3 iin llapttop modde, bbutt just 90 minutes in tablet mode.
The convertible construction adds to the weight too. The screen on its own weighs 816g, which is around 175g more than a 12.9in iPad Pro, and when it’s attached to the base the whole thing tips the scales at a considerable 1.64kg. Throw in the charger and you’re lugging around more than 2kg of technology.
Considering all that, connectivity options feel a little limited. You get a pair of USB-A 3.1 sockets and one USB-C socket with video support, but if you want regular HDMI or Ethernet you’ll need to either tie up one USB port with an adapter, or pay a shocking £260 for Microsoft’s Surface Dock 2, which attaches to the proprietary Surface Connect port. Still, it’s good to see that Wi-Fi 6 is present and correct, as is a full-sized SD-card reader.
The Surface Book 3 certainly can’t be called a me-too product. If you like the idea of a powerful Windows computer that turns into a slim and light tablet, there’s very little out there to compete with it. To be sure, it has its shortcomings: it’s far from the most portable laptop around, will only work in tablet mode for a limited time, and it’s expensive too, with even the weediest configuration starting at £1,333 excluding VAT. But if you’re sold on the idea of a no-compromises laptop that turns into a bona fide tablet, you won’t do better than the Surface Book 3.
“While the price is certainly high, what it gets you is a very capable system, with an overall score of 91 in our desktop benchmarks”