Microsoft Surface Book 3 The 'Ultimate laptop' needs new ideas

The Surface Book 3 continues Microsoft’s five-year mission to create the “ultimate laptop," still uniquely melding a tablet and keyboard base that can be used to create, work, and game.

But the goal is harder to achieve in 2020 than ever before. At $1,279.64 up to $2,157.00, the Surface Book 3 is pricey. Worse, it offers little improvement over a new and very strong generation of dedicated laptops, from gaming machines with Nvidia’s latest RTX hardware to consumer devices optimized for extreme battery life and connectivity. Even Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 7 provides a superior tablet experience to the Surface Book 3’s. 

The Surface Book 3 is a fantastic product for the do-it-all niche it serves. It’s just that as laptops around it continue to evolve and improve, its niche continues to shrink.

Surface Book 3 prices

Microsoft's Surface Book 3 product line will be available May 21, with two sizes to choose from: 13.5-inch and 15-inch. The Surface Book 3 will ship with Windows 10 Home, a somewhat odd choice for a laptop priced like a mobile workstation. A separate version, the Surface Book 3 for Business, will ship with Windows 10 Pro. 

What follows are the prices, and then the detailed specs, of both models.

13.5-inch:

• Core i5-1035G7, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Iris Plus: $1,600
• Core i7-1065G7, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, GeForce GTX 1650 (Max-Q): $2,000
• Core i7-1065G7, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, GeForce GTX 1650 (Max-Q): $2,500
• Core i7-1065G7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, GeForce GTX 1650 (Max-Q): $2,700

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15-inch:

• Core i7-1065G7, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, GeForce GTX 1660Ti (Max-Q): $2,300
• Core i7-1065G7, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, GeForce GTX 1660Ti (Max-Q): $2,800
• Core i7-1065G7, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, GeForce GTX 1660Ti (Max-Q): $3,000
• Core i7-1065G7, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD, GeForce GTX 1660Ti (Max-Q): $3,400

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As you can see from the specs below, we were given the 15-inch Surface Book 3 with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (Max-Q) GPU option for review. The Quadro RTX is the best choice if the Surface Book 3 is to be used as a mobile workstation. The RTX hardware supports real-time ray tracing (and Microsoft’s gorgeous Minecraft RTX beta). But the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti should be a excellent choice for a consumer lifestyle.

• Display: 13.5-inch (3000x2000, 267 ppi) PixelSense 10-point touch; 15-inch (3240x2160, 260 ppi) PixelSense 10-point touch (as tested)
• Processor: (13.5-inch) Core i5-1035G7, Core i7-1065G7; (15-inch) Core i7-1065G7 (as tested)
• Graphics: (13.5-inch) Iris Plus, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 (Max-Q) with 4GB GDDR5; (15-inch) Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (Max-Q) w/6GB GDDR6 (as tested), Nvidia Quadro RTX 3000 (Max-Q) with 6GB GDDR6
• Memory: (13.5-inch) 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB 3733MHz LPDDR4x; (15-inch) 16GB or 32GB 3733MHz LPDDR4x (as tested)
• Storage: (13.5-inch) 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB PCIe SSD; (15-inch) 256GB, 512GB (as tested), 1TB, or 2TB PCIe SSD (2TB in United States only)
• Ports: 2 Surface Connect, 2 USB-A, 1, USB-C, SDXC, headphone jack
• Camera: User-facing: 5MP, 1080p (Windows Hello); Rear: 8MP, 1080p
• Battery: Tablet: 22.2 Wh; Base: 59.7Wh; Total: 81.9Wh
• Wireless: 802.11 ax (Wi-Fi 6); Bluetooth 5.0; Xbox Wireless (15-inch only)
• Operating system: Windows 10 Home (as tested), Windows 10 Pro
• Dimensions (inches): (13.5-inch) 12.3 x 9.14 x 0.90 inches (13-23mm); (15-inch, Core i7) 3.5 x 9.87 x 0.90 inches (15-23mm)
• Weight: 13.5-inch is 3.38 pounds total for Core i5, 3.62 pounds for Core i7 (tablet alone is 1.59 pounds); 15-inch, Core i7 is 4.2 pounds total (tablet is 1.8 pounds)
• Color: Silver

Surface Book 3 design and display

The Surface Book’s unique design continues with version 3: It folds like a traditional clamshell laptop, or the display detaches to be used as a tablet. The Surface Book 3 reclines a bit less than other laptops do, about 50 degrees off of the horizontal.

You can even mount the tablet backward in “presentation mode” for others to view your screen. Microsoft says it’s sped up detachment time to a second or two. The tablet will reattach itself if you don’t remove it, I noticed. 

The Surface Book 3’s beautiful PixelSense touch display is as good as ever. It produced 496 nits of luminosity by our measurement, twice what we consider comfortable for indoor work. Both “enhanced” and “sRGB” modes are available for color fidelity in design work.

The ability to detach the display is the Surface Book 3’s most distinctive feature, but not its best. Both the 13.5-inch and the 15-inch Surface Book 3 tablets are uncomfortably awkward to hold. Because they lack the kickstand of a Surface Pro 7, they’re good for just one thing: drawing, using a Surface Pen or Surface Dial (neither included). Propping it up to watch Netflix simply isn’t as effective as with a Surface Pro or Surface Go. The Surface Book 3 really works best as a traditional clamshell PC. 

The Surface Book 3’s price suggests a powerful Intel H-class Core chip might be inside, but because the CPU is mounted behind the display, the excellent Ice Lake U-series chips are used instead. The discrete GPU (if there is one) resides in the base. The Surface Book 3’s memory, however, has been substantially upgraded from the prior generation, from 1,866MHz DDR3 to the current 3,733MHz LPDDR4.

Microsoft's claim that the Surface Book 3 includes its "fastest SSD ever" applies only to the 1TB and 2TB SSDs in the most expensive versions. Our review unit's fast 512GB Toshiba SSD (the same used in the “Ice Lake” version of the Surface Laptop 3) sufficed for documents and a few games.