Apple's MacBook Pro vs. Microsoft's Surface Book 2

[Tozovac]

Except it is double the thickness of a MacBook Pro, and the touchpad / touch screen is not really ergonomic (it requires carrying around a mouse). It may be more powerful, but not as portable as a MBP.

But how horrible is the thickness "issue" at this point, unless one makes a living entering/exiting rooms by crawling under closed doors?

With every fraction of thickness taken away from any of the MacBook line, all I see is all the lost opportunity for more expandability, more battery life, more keyboard/touchpad feel, more ports, more More. Size doesn't always matter.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

I made this change 2 months ago. Mostly use Adobe Creative Suite and Davinci Resolve, which requires a powerful GPU. So the Surface Book 2 with a Nvidia 1060 was a no brainer. Loving it! Got a 256gb micro-sd card to store my media for another $100 and love that they have a magnetic power cord (clearly inspired by the older mac laptops) that my dog can run by without taking my laptop to the floor.

The only thing that I actually miss is Keynote though, nothing comes close to the ease of use of it.

Felt that Macrumors didn't consider that the 13 inch version comes with a Nvidia 1050 and the 15 inch has the Nvidia 1060, making them one of the most portable devices with a decent dedicated GPU. That was the main selling point for me.

Too bad the NVidia GPUs are optimized for GAMING, and that's the ONE thing the Surface Book can't even DO without running its battery down WHILE CHARGING!!!!

The Applications you mention are closer to CAD than Gaming, and so, you aren't being well served by basing your purchasing decisions on the Surface Book's GAMING GPU. Too bad you didn't ACTUALLY do your homework as to WHY Apple SHOSE the AMD GPUs over NVidia...

 

[bbeagle]

A surprisingly balanced review from Macrumors.

Surprisingly anti-Apple and pro-Microsoft from what I read. Not balanced at all.

Whenever the author writes something good written about the MacBook, he has to clarify that with his own opinions that those features aren't good.

For example,

the main feature that it can boast over the Surface Book 2 is the Touch Bar, something that arguably does not get as much use as a 2-in-1 design
​

or

When it comes to the keyboard, the Surface Book 2 has a softer keyboard that's not quite as clicky and solid as the keyboard of the MacBook Pro, but as we well know, the keyboard redesign on the 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro models has been receiving a lot of attention lately for reliability issues and its seemingly frequent failures, so the Surface Book 2 may have the edge here.​

 

[ms013]

The keyboard on the SB2 along with the Windows Subsystem For Linux was enough to get me to try the Surface. Love it so far. Windows is a bit weird to get used to, but WSL gives me the dev environment that I use for work, and the keyboard isn’t the terrible clacky thing that my 2017 MBP has. For me the keyboard was the deciding factor: after 19 years on apple laptops exclusively, the new MBP keyboard was enough to make me try something new.

 

[ksnell]

A comparison to the new Thinkpad X1 Carbon would make a lot more sense:
- similar footprint
- business/lightweight machines
- amazing screen
- thinkpads rocks the mobile keyboard for years now
- thinkpad actually has an i7 (quadcore) option in a 14inch slim-bezel design.

We will see what WWDC brings this year, it better be good (better)...

I am definitely thinking about going Thinkpad X1 Carbon or Thinkpad T Series next instead of a MacBook Pro. Good specs and good reliability from what I can see. The MacBook is nowhere near as compelling as it used to be.

 

[elppa]

• Look like a complete mess with Windows 7, 8, first gen & Fluent UWP apps all mixed up together. This is the OS where Notepad still looks the same as it did in Windows 95

The examples you've listed can be easily changed by any technical person with regedit.

This is definitely not true for the first point raised by @bluecoast - there is no way to workaround this with regedit!
It is a genuine point. Apple has a slightly different problem - there is more consistency - but no one is making new Cocoa Mac apps anymore.

If you're going to talk about Notepad - Quicktime can't even play common file types. Why is DVD player still a standalone app in macOS?

As far as I understand DVD playback still requires a licensing fee so no complaints. DVD player was a good app and it is not doing any harm keeping it around. Presumably telemetry indicates some people are still using it.

 

[gwest]

I had a Surface Pro 4 for over a year- it, and the Surface Book, are brilliantly designed and engineered computers. As a photographer, I could be on location and download images from an SD card, open and work on them in LR/PS, continue working on a plane, hotel room or restaurant, and have access to the full-fledged programs that I needed.

I hoped that the iPad Pro would be similar- run Mac OS, run full blown programs (not "apps") and provide a variety of ports for I/O. But the iPad Pro is simply an iPad Big that attaches to a keyboard. There's nothing "professional" about a device that can't run pro apps or even let you plug into an external drive.

Alas, there's the issue of Windows. As much as I loved the Surface, the OS is simply "clunky" compared to iOS and Consumer Reports has found that a large percentage of owners experience problems within the first 2 years. Macs "just work", and that's what I want. Even Windows third party apps just don't have the elegance of iOS apps- the most popular PDF reader on the Windows machines would constantly crash or stop responding to touch. Very maddening.

So I have an iPad Pro that love for reading/browsing/light clerical work, but I can't use it for my photography (the "workarounds" are simply not worth the effort, and the inability to connect to an external HD is simply stupid). This is the one time that I wish Apple would copy MS and create an iPad-like device that runs OS X and has useful ports...something exactly like a Surface.

 

[Rafterman]

Yeah. Gotta LOVE that Surface Book...

NOT!

Shame on you, MR, for NOT doing your Due Diligence...

You could find just as many complaints about MacBooks - or any laptop.

 

[Edsel]

I dabble in three ecosystems, Apple, Microsoft and Google. Each are more similar than different from a user/feature perspective. However, from a security standpoint, Apple is my choice, then Windows. Hardware wise? I've been using MacBook Pros and love their power but I've enjoyed using Surface products as well, and Lenovo's Thinkpad workstations are fantastic. Android apps running on Chromebooks is a nice feature too.

Consumers have a cornucopia of choices. There are no bad choices anymore.

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

I think Surface sucks, but if Apple is keeping its slow pace on Macs, Surface will overtake MacBook and leave it far behind within 3 years.

Yeah because the slow pace is Apple’s fault and it was planned by them all along. Intel had nothing to do with it.

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/07/intel-foundry-and-vulnerability-issues/

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

You could find just as many complaints about MacBooks - or any laptop.

Curiously enough, you don't favor us with any...

 

[lking]

I would not switch because I do not need at bells and whistles on the surface, I want simple and working together with other devices that I own. I am not a windows person anymore.

Topking

 

[twistedpixel8]

The hinge on the Surface is pretty neat. I imagine it breaks easily though.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

I think Surface sucks, but if Apple is keeping its slow pace on Macs, Surface will overtake MacBook and leave it far behind within 3 years.

What slow pace on Mac LAPTOPS (or, other than the mini and the Mac Pro, which everyone has a legit right to bitch about, their Desktops)?

iMacs - Updated mid 2017.

MacBook Pro - Updated mid 2017 (after just being Updated late 2016!).

MacBook/Air - About to be announced.
[doublepost=1525800581][/doublepost]

How about a Mac version of the surface pro? OS X when attached to keyboard, iOS when not. So easy. Oh, and an option to turn off OS X for all of the nay sayers who only want iOS on an iPad!

So, how much do you want Apple to give away an iPad Pro for? Because that's EXACTLY wnat they would HAVE to do. Plus, the Graphics speed should SUCK, because you would essentially have to funnel ALL the Mac's graphics through the GPU on the iPad-part! Effectively, you'd have a headless MacBook Pro, running a type of "Duet" Software, into an attached iPad Pro.

And HEAVY? OMG!!!
[doublepost=1525800789][/doublepost]

The only thing I don't really care for about the SB is the awkward "hinge" connecting the keyboard from the tablet. It also shows that you can make a device pretty thin AND have plenty room for needed ports. Still though with as much as I criticize Apple I'd still go with the MB over the SB

Pretty Thin?!?

Did you LOOK at that picture of the two of them stacked up???

I rest my cases...
[doublepost=1525800993][/doublepost]

I give credit to Microsoft for carving out space for its Surface line of products. I am seeing them more and more (I teach in higher education, and I still see most of my students choosing Apple products, although the faculty are going more and more for Surfaces). Apple is ceding so much of its progress up and down its Mac line, and I don't quite understand why.

Too bad the Surface Book SUCKS as far as h/w AND s/w (OS) reliability goes.

Your students are smart. Faculty is a bunch of sheep.

 

[wonkymouth]

I don't normally comment on sites like this, and don't like all the hand-wringing that generally goes on, but what a bizarre review.

What about battery life when editing in Photoshop, heat, fan noise under load, ability to stay at full clock speed under load and so on? How do they deal with 100k line spreadsheets, rendering thumbnails of large folders containing images and so on.

You're comparing £2,500 laptops that are generally bought to perform an intensive task, not phones. The review was pretty much pointless, can't understand why it was posted.

 

[Rafterman]

Curiously enough, you don't favor us with any...

The terrible keyboard, lack of ports, price, wobbly touchID sensor, limited use touchbar.

I own both. They are both great in many different ways and have some flaws. All machines do.
[doublepost=1525801610][/doublepost]

What slow pace on Mac LAPTOPS (or, other than the mini and the Mac Pro, which everyone has a legit right to bitch about, their Desktops)?

iMacs - Updated mid 2017.

MacBook Pro - Updated mid 2017 (after just being Updated late 2016!).

MacBook/Air - About to be announced.
[doublepost=1525800581][/doublepost]
So, how much do you want Apple to give away an iPad Pro for? Because that's EXACTLY wnat they would HAVE to do. Plus, the Graphics speed should SUCK, because you would essentially have to funnel ALL the Mac's graphics through the GPU on the iPad-part! Effectively, you'd have a headless MacBook Pro, running a type of "Duet" Software, into an attached iPad Pro.

And HEAVY? OMG!!!
[doublepost=1525800789][/doublepost]
Pretty Thin?!?

Did you LOOK at that picture of the two of them stacked up???

I rest my cases...
[doublepost=1525800993][/doublepost]
Too bad the Surface Book SUCKS as far as h/w AND s/w (OS) reliability goes.

Your students are smart. Faculty is a bunch of sheep.

Yeah, the MacBook wins because it looks prettier. OK. You do know that hinge is like that for a reason, right? A functionality MacBooks can't duplicate.

No reliability problems with the MacBook or the Surface Book. Just the usual problems any advanced machine has.

 

[lec0rsaire]

Surface Book 2 is too expensive not to be equipped with TB3. Apple can be criticized for not adding a Type A port or SD card slot but not for 4 fully powered TB3 ports on the 15”. TB3 is the future and Apple was way ahead of the pack.

Even with all of its faults, there is nothing as good as the combination of Mac hardware and software on the market. You can run Windows if you need to on a Mac through a VM or boot camp. You can never run macOS on a Windows notebook.

 

[ctg7w6]

So, how much do you want Apple to give away an iPad Pro for? Because that's EXACTLY wnat they would HAVE to do. Plus, the Graphics speed should SUCK, because you would essentially have to funnel ALL the Mac's graphics through the GPU on the iPad-part! Effectively, you'd have a headless MacBook Pro, running a type of "Duet" Software, into an attached iPad Pro.

And HEAVY?

No. iPad as it is now and the apple Smart Keyboard attached. The iPad runs OS X in this case. Take it off the keyboard, regular iOS. You’re extremely combative. Why don’t you chill out?

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

No. iPad as it is now and the apple Smart Keyboard attached. The iPad runs OS X in this case. Take it off the keyboard, regular iOS. You’re extremely combative. Why don’t you chill out?

How would the iPad run OS X?

 

[EdwardC]

Well, I have been with Mac since System 7 and have to say that after the High Sierra updates to my late 2013 iMac and subsequent relentless issues, which finally ended up making me carry it to the Appple store to have the hard drive reformatted, and Sierra put back on as well as Apples decision to continue to sell a 2014 Mac Mini (I still use my 2012 Mini with 16 gigs of RAM as my daily office machine). I decided to set up an Intel, I-3 Windows machine with an GT650 video card eight gigs on the box and 4 on the card to run my AutoCAD. I am running Windows 10 in the box, Chrome for my browser, EM Client for my iCloud e-mail, Libre Office as well as iTunes. The result has been extremely positive with no issues making the transition from all Apple to the Windows box. The recommended apps one reviewer was speaking of can be turned off, and you will no longer see them in the Start Menu. As I head into my mid 50s I am no longer willing to pay the "Apple Tax" for a sometimes half-baked OS and outdated hardware. It looks like I will be investing in a little more power for a lot less money soon. Oh yes, I also have an Asus Chomebook 14" as a laptop, and it's everything I could want for a portable solution for $350.00. Your mileage may vary but all in all, I'm very happy with things in the Windows world. I will continue to keep my mini and iMac around until they bite the dust as well as my iPhone 6s and 7 and iPad Air 2 but for the desk top all bets are off.

 

[twilson]

It comes with a good graphics card already. No need to fart around with external things. MS made the correct choices with ports. Apple is early with USB-C

If you go for the top of the range one, yes. But "Windows Subsystem for Linux" is a crappy substitute for a proper unix-like OS (such as Mac OS X)

I was consider the SB2 (because of the GTX 1060) for business, but having tried WSL it's not ready for prime-time. My productivity is worth way more than the crappy WSL cludge!

 

[chrono1081]

Everything is designed for Windows how the hell is it limiting?
You can't run poop on OSX you make me laugh.

Very bad troll attempt I'm afraid. If you think Windows does more than Mac OS you need to learn more about each OS. Just because more software is made for Windows doesn't mean it can do more as an OS.

 

[ctg7w6]

How would the iPad run OS X?

Well, I'm hoping that Apple eventually moves from Intel processors to proprietary ARM-based builds. Along with the rumor (confirmed? not sure) that they are going to cross-platform single app solutions, this could work out really well.

 

[tipoo]

I mainly just wish we could get the GPU options from the Surface Book.

A 1050 in the 13" and a 1060 in the 15" is just so hilarious above the Iris and Radeon Pro options, even the top 560. The splitting of the CPU and GPU TDPs into two halves just allows so much more TDP in 13" and 15" thin and lights.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

 

[makeintosh]

I WANT a touch screen Mac - badly. I'd happily trade all my iPads, MacBooks and iMac for one such a device. But Tim obviously knows me better than I do and won't make one. Actually probably why he won't make one is because everyone might also do the same and Tim won't make as much money. As for Mac vs Windows, until Windows 10, I hadn't considered Windows since I left it years ago. But W10 is a nice OS. Doesn't have the same level of ecosystem integration as Mac, but getting there. I wouldn't rule out my returning to Windows in the future.