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Surface Book 2

kazmac said:
So after some back and forth between Windows 10 and Apple, I realize I need a machine that I can use for everything (video conversion, writing, Office, drawing etc.), so a MS Surface product is probably in my future. Either the SB2 15" with a monitor, or if MS ever updates the Surface Studio, the 2nd gen SS with SSD, better internal graphics, pen latency etc..

I am very intrigued by the 15" SB2 because of my usage. It's a bit frustrating to jump from iMac to Acer laptop to iPP for all these things. As I use W10 (and have thankfully disabled the data mining elements), it is a lot more stable than Sierra. I am still learning things, but I am not as ambivalent toward Windows as I was even a few weeks ago. It is simply observing and getting over 20+ years of using Mac only at home.

My increasingly dislike of Apple's brass, price points, lack of QC, and especially not offering a product that does everything I need and want is making me rethink my stance. I gave Apple one more pricey chance this year, enough is enough already.

Yeah, the SB2 is pricey, but for my use, a higher end Surface product is the eventual way to go. I am glad I did not keep the Surface Laptop though as I now realize I need and want that 2-in-1 and/or drawing capability in one machine.

@Queen6 looking forward to your eventual review of the SB2 15".
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It is the lack of QC of Surface devices that ultimately caused me to not buy another Surface device.

First, there are the physical issues to overcome. But if there are no physical issues/defects, there are driver-related issues. That is maybe more frustrating than having a hardware defect/malfunction. One could have a smoothly running Surface that suddenly exhibits issues because of an update OS/firmware/driver that breaks something. Then it could broken for weeks or even months before it is resolved.

It's a pity. I've been a fan of the Surface from day-1. Loved the concept and the execution. But ultimately after giving the Surface line more than a few chances, they just have become too unreliable for me. But I'm an eternal optimist so I'll be eagerly awaiting the intial and long-term reviews of the Surface Book 2 to see if things have improved.
 
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sracer said:
It is the lack of QC of Surface devices that ultimately caused me to not buy another Surface device.

First, there are the physical issues to overcome. But if there are no physical issues/defects, there are driver-related issues. That is maybe more frustrating than having a hardware defect/malfunction. One could have a smoothly running Surface that suddenly exhibits issues because of an update OS/firmware/driver that breaks something. Then it could broken for weeks or even months before it is resolved.

It's a pity. I've been a fan of the Surface from day-1. Loved the concept and the execution. But ultimately after giving the Surface line more than a few chances, they just have become too unreliable for me. But I'm an eternal optimist so I'll be eagerly awaiting the intial and long-term reviews of the Surface Book 2 to see if things have improved.
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Thanks for the input as always @sracer. I've read about some of those driver issues here and elsewhere. That's my big hesitation about fulling committing to Windows (hardware and driver issues) being that I have never had a Windows system at home and know nothing about fixes or drivers. I really dig the idea behind the Surface Book and the Surface Studio (outdated internals and price not withstanding.) I hope Microsoft and other OEMs can commit to making those driver issues a thing of the past. It would be great if a software/hardware manufacturer could be very proactive on both aspects.

Well, I do not have to worry about committing to one or the other platform right now, but that is a bummer. I like to be self sufficient in understanding and trouble shooting my tech.

Hopefully those kinds of driver snafus won't keep happening. I look forward to hearing your thoughts if you do give another Surface product a go.
 
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hajime said:
Do you find the hindge a bit loose and this causes the screen shaking easily?
[doublepost=1511154912][/doublepost]

Hope you enjoy the new machine. What do you mean by the above statement?
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I just never enjoyed the Mac version of Excel. It's not terrible by any means, I even used it exclusively for years. But once I understood the power of the Windows version, there was no going back.
 
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sracer said:
Surface Book 2 can't stay charged during gaming sessions

First Apple packs a weak AC adapter in with the 12.9 iPad Pro, and now Microsoft cheaps out with the SB2. It's not earth-shattering, but come on, for the price of these devices it should include an adapter fully capable of powering the device while using it.
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I think they did it on purpose so that they can have something easy to improve for the next versions.
 
sracer said:
Surface Book 2 can't stay charged during gaming sessions

First Apple packs a weak AC adapter in with the 12.9 iPad Pro, and now Microsoft cheaps out with the SB2. It's not earth-shattering, but come on, for the price of these devices it should include an adapter fully capable of powering the device while using it.
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I don't think MS thought it out well enough, was a concern of mine from the release, as it was evident the power supply was inadequate. My own 15" notebook with a 1060 has 180W charger. MBP's of old had this issue as did Dell once. I believe, although Dells solution was startlingly simple replace the power pack with a higher capacity one, which is what Microsoft needs to do rapidly. Irrespective of the users activity the charger should be capable of keeping up, frankly it's common sense :rolleyes:

If Microsoft tack on a higher capacity charger at an additional cost it will indeed be disappointing as this and the Pen should be in the box. All this nickel & diming by the likes of Apple needs to stop not be expanded by Microsoft as it leaves a bad taste, worst still sets precedents and has zero benefit to the consumer...

As for my own 1st Gen Surface Book it remains to be rock solid and presents no issues standing up well to both work and travel., thankfully with adequate power supply & Pen included :)

Q-6
 
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I had a Surface Book 1 and was hugely disappointed in it: it promised so much and when it worked properly it was brilliant.

Unfortunately, it didn't work more than it worked - I had power issues, blue screens when undocking the screen, processor running full speed all the time and flattening the battery, blue screens coming out of sleep, failure to go to sleep and random crashes. 6 months of updates from Microsoft didn't really fix the issues and I ended up cutting my losses and getting rid of it

However, I need a powerful and lightweight windows laptop for a new project I'm starting next week and have ordered a Surface Book 2 which is being delivered today.

I would have gone for the 15" but it's not available in the UK so I ordered the 512GB quad core i7 13.5" which was still eye wateringly expensive at around £2.5k so I really hope it lives up to the promise this time!

If it shows any signs of unreliability in the first week, I'll send it straight back and get a refund as I'm not going to risk it being like the last time :)
 
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Phil A. said:
I had a Surface Book 1 and was hugely disappointed in it: it promised so much and when it worked properly it was brilliant.

Unfortunately, it didn't work more than it worked - I had power issues, blue screens when undocking the screen, processor running full speed all the time and flattening the battery, blue screens coming out of sleep, failure to go to sleep and random crashes. 6 months of updates from Microsoft didn't really fix the issues and I ended up cutting my losses and getting rid of it
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Sadly, that has been my experiences with the Surface line of products. Ironically, the only time I had one that worked reliably was when they stopped supporting it. My Surface 2 worked great after that...no crashes, great battery life, no updates to break things. :confused::D


Phil A. said:
However, I need a powerful and lightweight windows laptop for a new project I'm starting next week and have ordered a Surface Book 2 which is being delivered today.

I would have gone for the 15" but it's not available in the UK so I ordered the 512GB quad core i7 13.5" which was still eye wateringly expensive at around £2.5k so I really hope it lives up to the promise this time!

If it shows any signs of unreliability in the first week, I'll send it straight back and get a refund as I'm not going to risk it being like the last time :)
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Y'know what they say, "fool me once..." ;) Hopefully your experience with this will be better.
 
Phil A. said:
Unfortunately, it didn't work more than it worked
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I've lucked out, my SB has been incredibly stable and its a great laptop.

In my using it these past 2 years (I think 2 years), I found myself gravitating closer to OSX. In using the SB, I noticed that I missed the intangibles of being in Apple's ecosystem. I still need a windows machine, and I boot my iMac into Windows when the need arises, but I find myself drawn to my trusty old 2012 MBP.
 
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maflynn said:
I've lucked out, my SB has been incredibly stable and its a great laptop.

In my using it these past 2 years (I think 2 years), I found myself gravitating closer to OSX. In using the SB, I noticed that I missed the intangibles of being in Apple's ecosystem. I still need a windows machine, and I boot my iMac into Windows when the need arises, but I find myself drawn to my trusty old 2012 MBP.
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Well, the new one has arrived and it hasn't crashed yet ;)

There doesn't seem much external difference from what I can remember, but it seems very, very fast (which it should as it's a quad core i7 and my last one was a dual core i5)

I really hope I just had a lemon last time and this one will work as I expected as I love the form factor and promised functionality
 
How heavy will a suitable adapter replacement be?
[doublepost=1511358774][/doublepost]I found it difficult to do two thumbs typing on the screen of the 15" version.
 
hajime said:
How likely will a 3rd party adapter be available?
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There are already 3rd party AC adapters since the SB2 uses USB-C for charging. The issue is that none of the chargers are strong enough to charge the SB2 while it is under heavy load (due to the limitations of USB-C for charging)
 
sracer said:
There are already 3rd party AC adapters since the SB2 uses USB-C for charging. The issue is that none of the chargers are strong enough to charge the SB2 while it is under heavy load (due to the limitations of USB-C for charging)
Click to expand...

How about having two usb-c chargers plugged to two different ports at the same time. Will it work?
 
Phil A. said:
I had a Surface Book 1 and was hugely disappointed in it: it promised so much and when it worked properly it was brilliant.

Unfortunately, it didn't work more than it worked - I had power issues, blue screens when undocking the screen, processor running full speed all the time and flattening the battery, blue screens coming out of sleep, failure to go to sleep and random crashes. 6 months of updates from Microsoft didn't really fix the issues and I ended up cutting my losses and getting rid of it

However, I need a powerful and lightweight windows laptop for a new project I'm starting next week and have ordered a Surface Book 2 which is being delivered today.

I would have gone for the 15" but it's not available in the UK so I ordered the 512GB quad core i7 13.5" which was still eye wateringly expensive at around £2.5k so I really hope it lives up to the promise this time!

If it shows any signs of unreliability in the first week, I'll send it straight back and get a refund as I'm not going to risk it being like the last time :)
Click to expand...

Personally I'm inclined to apply the same logic as previous and wait a good while until Microsoft and it's manufacturing partners work out all the kinks as my own 1st Gen Surface Book (i7, 256, dGPU) has been flawless to date. Certainly your experience was unacceptable to say the very least, nor should it be replicated. I have a desktop replacement that offers even more performance than the new 15" Surface Book 2, equally it's very firmly a standard notebook sans "Touch" in any shape or form which I will happily utilise in the meantime.

For Surface Book 2 has to be the 15" yet scenario is the same with only the 13" available in Asia, so far although I'm fine with that as I want a competent product not a "Beta" test :p

Q-6
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hajime said:
How likely will a 3rd party adapter be available?
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Unlikely outside of USB Cm whites limited to 100W and therefore inadequate.

Q-6
[doublepost=1511376520][/doublepost]
hajime said:
How about having two usb-c chargers plugged to two different ports at the same time. Will it work?
Click to expand...

Surface Book 2 only has one USB C port and it's proprietary charging port, doubt both will work in tandem to charge the batteries. Surface Book has it's own magnetic proprietary charger equally it's simply inadequate to fully power the system under 100% load. To me is somewhat pointless to offer the performance of the 1060 dGPU only to cripple the usage by not providing an adequate power supply. Microsofts options are simple replace the current power supply with an adequate unit, assuming the connection can handle the increased current or downgrade the 1060, which I have to say will be a PR disaster.

Why Microsoft has painted itself into this very Apple like corner is beyond me. It's rather common sense that users are going to want to flex the muscles such a notebook. Personally I would be asking the "team" some very direct questions right now, they would seriously need to measure & qualify their response...

Q-6
 
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I'm seriously thinking about getting a Surface Book 2 15" model. I'm a little concerned with the CPU. For those of you who have purchased the SB2, do you find the CPU adequate for your work?

I plan on using the SB2 for mostly coding and writing. However, I'm really getting into game development and want to learn Cinema 4D for 3D modeling/animation/motion graphics. I'm wondering if the CPU is sufficient for that and 4K editing on Adobe Premiere? I'll probably build a 10-12 core machine later for the heavy lifting, but wouldn't mind a laptop that can also handle those duties, just not as fast.

The lower TDP and clock speeds have me a little worried. I doubt it will be as powerful as a 45W Quad core but it if comes close I'll be very tempted. Especially with the GTX 1060 GPU.
 
KarmaRocket said:
I'm seriously thinking about getting a Surface Book 2 15" model. I'm a little concerned with the CPU. For those of you who have purchased the SB2, do you find the CPU adequate for your work?

I plan on using the SB2 for mostly coding and writing. However, I'm really getting into game development and want to learn Cinema 4D for 3D modeling/animation/motion graphics. I'm wondering if the CPU is sufficient for that and 4K editing on Adobe Premiere? I'll probably build a 10-12 core machine later for the heavy lifting, but wouldn't mind a laptop that can also handle those duties, just not as fast.

The lower TDP and clock speeds have me a little worried. I doubt it will be as powerful as a 45W Quad core but it if comes close I'll be very tempted. Especially with the GTX 1060 GPU.
Click to expand...

don't buy, you can't even replace the thermal paste, but if you want really bad, good luck
 
KarmaRocket said:
I'm seriously thinking about getting a Surface Book 2 15" model. I'm a little concerned with the CPU. For those of you who have purchased the SB2, do you find the CPU adequate for your work?

I plan on using the SB2 for mostly coding and writing. However, I'm really getting into game development and want to learn Cinema 4D for 3D modeling/animation/motion graphics. I'm wondering if the CPU is sufficient for that and 4K editing on Adobe Premiere? I'll probably build a 10-12 core machine later for the heavy lifting, but wouldn't mind a laptop that can also handle those duties, just not as fast.

The lower TDP and clock speeds have me a little worried. I doubt it will be as powerful as a 45W Quad core but it if comes close I'll be very tempted. Especially with the GTX 1060 GPU.
Click to expand...

Hard questions, I remain to be impressed with the thermal solution for my original Surface Book, equally a Skylake i7 Duel Core. Surface Book 2 with the new Quad Core CPU and GTX 1060 will be significantly faster for such a workload. Reviews from known unbiased sources should be a starter for any clues as the level of thermal throttling, if any the CPU will incur.

For a faster portable solution you will likely need to forgo the 2 in 1 design, opting for a heavyweight gamer or levelling up to a portable workstation, with the latter coming in at considerable cost.

Q-6
 
How are people getting on with their Surface Book 2's? There's a decent offer on the 256gb i7 in the UK at the moment. I'm constantly looking at reviews to help decide between this and the late 2017 HP Spectre x360.
 
michael9891 said:
How are people getting on with their Surface Book 2's? There's a decent offer on the 256gb i7 in the UK at the moment. I'm constantly looking at reviews to help decide between this and the late 2017 HP Spectre x360.
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I have owned the sb1 as well as al the surface pro’s. I use both a surface and a Mac for development work.

I recently bought the i7 512/16gb and so far it has been amazing. I am now selling my 2016 MacBook Pro 15” which was my main mobile device as I am sick of the keyboard and bugs in high sierra.

I had the sb1 but the bugs in that killed it for me and I ended up selling it and buying the 2016 mbp. This new sb2 has improved on the sb1 in so many ways.
The keyboard is sublime, speakers are marginally better, performance is amazing and the fact that the tablet is now fanless is the icing on the cake. I can build projects now in silence.
I have had no crashes in sleep, no detach problems and even intel xtu undervolting has worked without crashing allowing my a -90mv undervolt. This allows the cpu to sit at about 2.6ghz on all cores for extended periods.

I had massive reservations after all the issues with the sb1 but thought worst case I would return it and put up with the MacBook Pro but that is now heading to eBay.
 
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I've seriously considered Surface's over the years, but to me, if I was to spend that sort of money I'd get a Mac. It's just, I know what I'm getting with Apple.

Some people enjoy the whole trying something new idea, but not me!
 
I just bought a 2017 MacBook Pro 3 days ago the it's developed a KB issue. I am debating on either exchanging it and rolling the dice with another OR returning it and buying the base Surface Book 2...

The Surface Book 2 looks pretty sweet but I see I can get the OG Surface Book off Amazon for about $600 less.. I wonder if the base version Surface Book 2 is worth $600? The OG for $600 less is the 128GB version but I don't mind that as it has an SD card slot and I have a 128GB SD card in hand that's not getting used so using it I get 256 GB storage if I decided to leave the SD inserted 24/7..

So...

Surface Book i5 / 8 / 128 (256 using my SD card) @ $825

OR

Surface Book 2 i5 / 8 / 256 (384 using my SD card) @ $1400

Of note: I like that the 2 is fanless and while the OG comes with the pen I'd never use it so not really a bonus to me.

So ---> Is the 2 base worth $600 more over the OG base ???????????????????????????
 
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I went ahead and snagged the 2... Yeah it was $600 more but I like that it’s fanless and gets better battery life and has a USB C port.

Should have it tomorrow as I paid for overnight shipping.
 
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