Customer Ratings & Reviews

Got this the second day it becomes available at Best Buy. I bought this for my girlfriend, who is currently pursuing an architecture degree. Main use: Office, autoCAD, SketchUp, Photoshop, ArcGIS, etc. The set up was a breeze. Ported everything from her Microsoft account. After installation of a few essential softwares this bad boy is good to go. Looking at the form factor and the build quality of the Surface Book, it is by far the closest laptop on the market compared with a Mac. I am using a Macbook Pro myself so I am able to compare them side-by-syde. Surface book is just as beautiful, and feels just as premium, if not better. The hinge makes it look a little bit thicker than expected, but still very portable. The screen is crystal-clear, but keep in mind it has quite some glare. I haven't tested much on the performance side, but so far everything runs blazing fast including booting and opening - closing apps. Sepcs-wise, it shouldn't disappoint. 6th gen i7 CPU, discrete Nvidia Graphics card, 16G of RAM, and especially the format of solid state drive is NVMe, the latest and fastest on the market. I have installed all the aforementioned softwares so hopefully after my girlfriend gives it some road test I will be able to update on the performance. Regarding the features, I love its 2-in-1 capability, and its laptop-first mentality. By that I mean, if you use it under laptop mode (screen and keyboard together), you will never notice that it can be a tablet. A solid, all-round laptop. The detachable screen gives the Surface Book its unique versatility: it functions by itself as a tablet. Has 1024 pressure sensitive stylus. You can write notes, draw, doodle, do other creative works, read, etc, on the tablet. The writing experience is very very close to true pen-and-paper. If you own a Surface Pro, you probably understand what I'm talking about. What's more, you can even turn the screen around, facing outwards, and still plug it back into the keyboard base, to make it a kiosk. Fold it all the way down, you got a clipboard. Versatility at its finest. There are some Cons that I have noticed, however, that need some attention. But maybe some of them are just personal preference. I will leave you to be the judge. 1, The CPU is ULV, not the normal wattage processor that you see in most high-configuration devices. The 6-gen ULV i7 in the Surface Book only has two cores, whereas a previous generation non ULV i7 has four cores and higher TDP. This means, although Surface Book is fast, it probably won't be up to highly demanding tasks, compared with those workstations. 2, It gets moderately warm, even under light work. I think that's because the i7 cpu is fit in the ultra-thin screen. So if you run CPU intensive tasks, the screen can get hot; if you run GPU intensive tasks, the keyboard gets hot. Normally if a PC runs very hot, it will slow itself down, causing a lot of unresponsiveness and lags. I hope this device won't be too bad on thermal handling. I will update on that. 3, The Graphics card is not the gaming chip that a gamer would expect. From early reviews and tests of this laptop, it shows that the Nvidia custom GPU is close to a GTX 940M in performance. So Don't expect to play a lot of games with high settings with the Surface Book. However, mainstream games with med-to-low settings are most likely to cut it. 4, The hinge does make the Surface Book look a little bit weird. One end is thicker than the other end, and the laptop cannot completely be closed. But aesthetics mainly depend on personal preference. Personally I don't see it as a big deal. 5, The battery life of the tablet alone is short. So you cannot unplug the screen, take only the screen with you and expect it to last all day. The screen has no port except a headphone jack (so no charging). I would say, this laptop is designed to spend only about 25% of the time as a tablet. All in all, it's still a well-designed and great-looking laptop, with mostly all of the latest bells and whistles. I hope this Surface Book can give my girlfriend a good 3 years (or more) of usage.

I am a traveling robotics installer. I take this surface book with me on installs. I use it to surf the web. I use it to do solidworks on. The screen is really to small to do intensive 3d cad work but it works ok for reviewing models with the customers. If i have time i can hook up a bigger monitor but i do not do this often. My biggest complaint is that when it looses connection to wifi I have to disconnect and tell it to reconnect. This happens when I close the lid. There is likely a setting I should change but I have not discovered it yet. The laptop now has a couple nicks and scratches on the outside. I have not dropped it but i just through it in my bag and throw my bag around. I detach the tablet sometimes and use it without the keyboard. It is much better to read with than my galaxy s7 edge but it is hard to hold with one hand because it is so big. I love the magnetic charger. I have triped on the cord and it just popps out with out hurting anything.

I've waited for the surface pro 4 since January but my mind changed after they revealed the book. It's really great to have an actual laptop that can be a tablet when you need it, and it runs very well. The facial recognition works flawlessly and instantly signs me in. I also ordered a sleeve from waterfield hope that turns out nice

If you're a frequent traveler who needs high powered computing, you cannot beat this package. I found myself struggling with the price a bit, but had some extra cash and dove in. I'm so glad I did. Portability is impressive and the package feels incredibly solid. I carry it in the same leather folio I carried my Surface Pro 3. My typical daily use was a 17" Lenovo gamer type laptop, but the weight of carrying the laptop along with the hefty power brick gets annoying along with 2-4 hours of battery life tops while multi-tasking in the MS Office suite (Excel and Outlook run almost constantly on my machines). I have had the original surface pro before the surface pro 3 and fell in love with the platform immediately. The portability makes it so easy to carry with you everywhere and the battery life outlasts almost any laptop. My only complaint with the traditional Surface was that it didn't seem to be well adapted to 8 hour office use. It would warm up pretty steadily the longer I worked, so I began bringing both the laptop and SP3 if I knew I would be in the office setting. I was always concerned I would fry it using it much longer than a couple hours in a shot. And these were both i5 models with the larger storage capacity to get the extra RAM. Well the i7 Surface Book has fixed my concerns. The dual battery package is fantastic, and even with a power hungry capable system, the battery life is tremendous!! I've worked 10 hours straight and still have yet to get total battery capacity down below 50%. It also keeps you from discharging a single battery too quickly and generating heat when the system demands. Having the nVidia GPU onboard also helps relive the primary CPU of having to do everything, so heat is much less of a factor there as well. And it games pretty well in Native Resolution. I've played a few 3D rendering and computation heavy games like Kerbal Space Program and the latest Civilization. Both run flawlessly in Native Res. It will get a little warm gaming, but nothing unexpected. You could almost burn your hand on the SP3 just multitasking for a while in Windows 10, this gets lukewarm at best. Would I recommend to a power user? Yes. I'm confident this would even run Solidworks for quite a while on battery with no issue. It would be money wasted on a casual user who really only uses the web browser and MS Office Suite. I have a desktop at home with 512GB SSD, 16 GB RAM and i7 H/T 8-core CPU and the Surface Book boots almost 10 seconds faster than it does. Where I would really recommend the entire Surface line is to the traveling salesperson. They boot and run so quickly, they are perfect for those times when you're running down the road and have to pull over and send an e-mail or run numbers quickly. It's perfect for the full MS Office functionality on a platform as portable as an iPad.

The surface book is an enigma. It’s both a great laptop, and a great tablet. It’s fast, powerful, looks great, and hasn’t disappointed in performance or function. Now, caveat that with random software glitches, for example locking up when attaching/detaching, or losing the screen all together, and accessories not ready for prime time (the dock). To be fair, I bought within the first week and with each patch that comes out performance improves, and glitches become less and less. Pros: • Performance • Battery life is excellent • Premium Look & Feel • Perfect hybrid for those demanding performance • Mobility – I travel for work, and this thing is great compromise between workhorse and portability. I can run VMs, play games, and code. • Power supply works with it in tablet mode (great for travelling) Cons: • No matter how I justify it, this is overpriced. At this price the case should be bedazzled with diamonds. • 99% of the time no glitches, but lock-ups, running hot while not under load, losing the start menu, and having to use multiple system restores. This has been border line “take it back” at times. With that said, I give it my recommendation for a power user who loves being on the bleeding edge. The performance and form factor is great, and they seem to be working out the bugs. If you are buying now, running windows update will sort you out. Do you research and make sure this style of device is right for you….If you are a laptop user who occasionally wants a beautiful tablet, it’s worse a look.

The Surface Book has been easy to use, lightweight and very functional while traveling. I have enjoyed using the touch screen and being able to detach the screen while on a plane and reverse it as a tablet. The processor is fast and the solid state drive is quick after having used traditional notebooks for years. I would give this 5 stars except for me I would prefer to see a power light to know that when I press the power button something is happening, Still get a little disconcerted when pressing the power button and there is a major lag before seeing the Surface logo on screen. In addition, would be nice to have a battery light as well. I don't like having to rely upon the software doing everything, as something can go wrong. Still getting used to the pen device, but overall I am very pleased with this machine.

I really love my surface book! As a pastor who does a lot of study, typing, PowerPoint creation, Bible app stuff and some video editing, I need a very strong machine. But I also wanted to be able to take my digital sermon outline with me to the pulpit without taking a Big laptop and didn't want to buy an ipadpro... So now I have a true all in one that can actually handle all OF IT!. Yaaay!. Pros... Size, style, feel, quality, amazing KEYBOARD (better than Lenovo), BEST ever track pad!! So smooth, accurate, and error free track pad!! Love the screen resolution!! Beautiful! Very fast while multitasking and boot up times!! The pen is awesome...i love the eraser button feature that opens one note (one click) takes a pic of screen (2 clicks), and opens cortona (press and hold). Is a stand alone tablet but also a powerful laptop/ultrabook!! You can reverse the direction of screen by detaching, turn around, then reattach... Then keyboard is always up, not sitting on lap like yoga models. 4, powerful ports. 2usb 3.0, one sd card slot, one mini display port (with 4k hd) support. Does not heat up on your lap (power is in the screen part). Awesome discrete graphics card that can handle video editing pretty good and photo editing very good! Keyboard has 3 levels of back lit brightness that can be adjusted on keyboard. Hello sign in camera feature is FAST as lightening, convenient, and way too futuristic COOL!!! Cons. I don't like where power button is. I wish at least one usb port was on tablet/screen section so that when it separated from keyboard, you can't access those files unless you also save them to hard drive or One drive. IT TAKES A LONG TIME TO SET UP AND THERE ARE A LOT OF FIRM WARE UPDATES out of the box...4 hours. (But when that is finished, it is amazing!!!) The tracker mode gets confused. You can't adjust screen brightness via keyboard... You have to go through settings. SOME TIMES the touch pad does not respond (detaching and reattaching fixes that). Love this machine!! It's a beast!! Very pleased with purchase!! Got,18 months no interest payment with Best Buy and 2 year Geeksquad support!! Expecting to get two great years of service from my Surface Book. Battery life is pretty good too!

I use this for school and video recording/editing, sometimes I play a few games that aren't too overly graphic intensive runs them just fine. Though because of it's casing it has a real fine line between hot/cold if your out in the cold you guessed it. It's cold. Some application running make it run hot. The battery life between tablet and keyboard together is one of the longest battery life's I've experienced, because it's an I7 with the extra GPU it's battery life is shorter then that of the models with the I3 or I5 without the extra GPU, but I still archive about 10Hrs of simple use, and it takes a while to charge. Don't know the approximate time for full charge. Weighing 3 pounds it's the best. I've rated 4/5 because software still need fine tuning for something that cost so much. Also wouldn't recommend to a friends because it's so expensive

OK so initially I had a love/hate relationship with this laptop/tablet. The great points are obvious but I wanted to mention issues that you might run into. This particular Surface Book includes an NVIDIA dedicated video card that turns on when you connect the tablet to the keyboard base. For several weeks in the beginning, the NVIDIA video card would randomly disappear from Device Manager until it was gone entirely. Talking to Microsoft Support, they were able to tell me to hold the power button and volume-up button to reset all my drivers which fixed this problem. Additionally there are issues with the laptop not being able to show the screen after coming out of sleep, so I disabled sleep. Also occasionally the camera won't turn on so I can't do face recognition to sign in. Other than that, this laptop is ultra portable, ultra light, and very functional and fast. Would recommend.

I've always used tablets as I like writing my notes. Using OneNote is very easy with this device. In addition, my handwriting comes out almost perfect. The feel is definitely 10x better than any other tablets that I've used in the past. I used to use my iPad Mini for my alarm clock and Youtube watching. Now I do it all through my laptop. It is bigger, but overall I don't have an issue with that as I can easily switch the tablet portion around to use the keyboard. I play older games such as Left4Dead and Left4Dead 2. Works perfectly at 1080p and highest setting. Pros: - Great for OneNote. - Excellent, smooth handwriting. - Good for baseline gaming on the go (with NVidia chip in keyboard). - Capable of running a 4K external monitor. - Battery life... AMAZING! Cons: - Heavy with keyboard attached for those whose arms are a little weaker (Like mine, but I tell myself I'll get buff holding it. =) - Not an iPad. So apps are limited, but that's okay. I need it for working. And iPad is not designed for working. - I'm scared of dropping this thing. My iPad is in a LifeProof case. I feel I need one for this. (Unfortunately, I'm a clumsy guy... Finger's crossed!) - I'm not eating anything but left overs in my fridge for 2x more months as I really couldn't afford it. But overall I needed it. Of note, I've always had a bad time at BestBuy. I once bought a 47" Westinghouse LCD with a warranty. They told me there was a problem after coming out to my apartment to check it out. This is back in 2005. They took it back but told me they'll have to replace it with a smaller LCD because the amount I paid would not cover a 47" or 50". So I got a gift card instead and gave it to family. Never really bought anything significant in cost or size from there again for the last 10 years. However, the manager tried very hard to help me get this laptop as it was out of stock at the beginning of November. It didn't come in until November 23rd, and they did get the wrong one initially. I had prepaid so that was a little disturbing as I never had the item though they had my money. They apologized profusely and got the right one within the same day. Overall, though I appreciated that it seems BestBuy is trying harder now a days to satisfy the customer. Anyway, I digress. I LOVE this laptop. Not a Mac person. Am a programmer in Java and C++. Always was a Lenovo user. I'm an engineer and a doctor. I can't imagine not having this thing now, and it's only been 2 weeks since I've had it.

I upgraded from a Surface Pro 3 to the Surfacebook. I needed better battery life and a little larger screen. I got both and more with this machine. The gap at the hinge is no big deal and, as far as I'm concerned, a stupid thing to be complaining about. In fact, it makes is easier to pull out of my laptop bag by having more area to grip it. The only issue with it comes down to windows 10. There have been several updates and I still have random problems with Hello and, occasionally, the microphone. I replaced both the tablet and my desktop with this machine and it works great otherwise.

The SurfaceBook is a really great feeling laptop/tablet hybred. I got it to replace my drastically under powered Yoga 3. Its powerful, fast and sexy. Here are the downsides I've noticed: 1: Intel HD graphics driver crashes frequently (Even if you tell the system to run apps on the Nvidia). I know this is software. 2: If you tell your apps to run on the Nvidia, you can't detach the tablet ,because it doesnt have the nvidia card, until you close those apps. 3: The keyboard illumination is centered under the center of the keyboard so keys near the edges are less bright. Also overhead lighting can wash out the keyboard in that the white of the illumination blends with the overhead lights and the keys all look grey and you can't read them. 4: The doc is required for an external monitor. 5: More of a windows nit, but you MUST set your update schedule so your system doesnt reboot without warning while you're working. I'm not trying to focus on the negatives, but there are so many positive reviews that I wanted to highlight what isnt great so folks can make a better decision.

To be perfectly honest, this is the best laptop I have ever owned, and I've owned laptops from three other big manufacturers. There was always a tradeoff. They either got way too warm under the keyboard, making for an uncomfortable lap experience, had a less than perfect trackpad, or just a low res screen with horrible viewing angles. Happy to say that none of that plagues the Surface Book! All but the discrete gpu is in the tablet top half of the machine, which stays off your lap and does a great job cooling. The glass trackpad is super smooth, and the hi res screen has beautiful viewing angles. I,ve said all of this and haven't even mentioned the fact that you can detach the tablet from the keyboard base. Using it as a tablet leaves something to be desired but I think the OS has more to do with that than anything. Love to web browse and watch movies on it though. The ratio even lends well to reading ebooks and comics. The writing experience with the included Surface Pen surpassed all my expectations. Testing it out with my signature felt as natural as writing on paper. Some cons (but not deal breakers): When you close the laptop there is a huge gap near the hinge which can let dust in and build up on the keyboard or screen. I wish they would have included an USB Type-C port since it is sure to pick up adoption in the next couple years. All in all though it really is the ultimate laptop. You spend a lot of money for this product, but I guarantee you will absolutely get what you pay for. Makes me excited for future versions.

I now have 2 Surface Books (i7, 512GB, 16GB RAM) and they are very fast, light and versatile. Both are connected to domains and function perfectly. I also highly recommend the Surface Dock. Very happy with this purchase.

I waited to purchase this until most of the kinks were ironed out. I have to say, this thing rocks. I get a 9-12 hours of office work done on a single charge. People think it is a Mac and then notice the Windows logo and kind of scratch their head. I then detach the screen and they are amazed. So far, I don't have any real complaints. I know some people have had issues, but since I have bought it in February I have only had maybe a handful of BSOD. The only hiccups I have are in the EDGE browser and having the built in Intel graphics crashing, but it always recovers. I think MS has squashed most bugs, and if you are seeing a lot of BSOD's I am going to guess you have some faulty hardware.

Excellent device that performs as advertised. Better than expected 3D support with the embedded NVidia GPU, many games are playable and even look good. Installed Visual Studio Pro 2015 and compiled/executed multiple projects from source control. It felt just like working from my desktop in terms of performance. Out of the box, the default OS install was flawed; asking me to log in as if someone had already used it, after a hard reset it went through the setup process but still did not operate correctly and was crashing in all sorts of unpredictable ways; windows updates would not complete and 3D rendering could cause a crash. However, after resetting to factory defaults with a full wipe of the boot partition, I was able to fully update it with windows update, install all my software and run it through 3Dmark benchmarks with out an issue. With respect to the NVidia GPU, I had to configure it via NVidia control panel to use the GPU and not the Integrated graphics. In some cases had to actually tell it which programs to use the GPU with. Since the reload and figuring out the GPU configuration, I have been nothing but impressed by this device. It performs as advertised and meets or exceeds my expectations in every way. If not for the out of box experience I would give this product 5 stars plus. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a high performance lightweight laptop/desktop replacement and have the technical skills to figure out the glitches, at least until Microsoft fixes a few minor bugs with the initial load.

I got the Surface Book (i7, 512GB, 16GB) to replace my business laptop and the transition has not been as smooth as I had thought it would be. Mainly because there was a lot of work trying to figure out how to connect two monitors using the docking station. Several configurations of different cables and adaptors were tried before I landed on something that did not consistently flicker and provided a workable desktop. Sometimes it's a bit finicky when trying to separate the screen. Often, the display resolution is not maintained. This is mostly frustrating. The performance is good in terms of processing. The keyboard is well placed. Since I fly a lot, it is nice to be able to separate the keyboard from the screen and go in tablet mode. In tablet mode, the battery life is much lower than when connected to the keyboard. But that is well documented already.

Overall, the performance of the surface book is great. I love the functionality it brings with the ability to run high consumption programs. It is so light and compact, yet powerful enough to run programs like SolidWorks. The only issues I've had are mostly from the display output with program compatibility such as Adobe. When I read pdfs on the main screen, everything is normal, but on an external display, everything is twice as large due to the 200% icon size being transferred. If I put everything down to 100%, the external display looks normal but everything is now tiny on the main screen. Also, had to play with settings on some programs due to the way the audio is read, like with Skype, needed to set speakers such that when I'm making a call, that I hear the other person through the headphones and not the speakers on the tablet, even though the surface dock was plugged in.

Microsoft has some critical quality control issues with this product and Windows 10. The Surface Book is fast with amazing versatility as a laptop, tablet, or clipboard and pen--that is if it will start up. First, I had to take it immediately back to the store because there was a username and password required out of the box, and I could not run my own set up. The Geek Squad was able to by-pass it with a reboot to a default state, saying they had noticed that Microsoft testers had failed to remove their usernames prior to shipping. Since then, particularly following some updates, I had to research how to start up the Surface Book since it was totally lifeless. It would not start even by pressing the power button--found out I had to hold it 30 seconds for a reset, release, then press quickly again, sometimes a couple of times. Even then it would freeze regularly not allowing any key or touch commands. Windows Hello and Hey Cortana were intermittent. After extensive further research, where others had encountered the same issues, I followed one recommendation to run the 'Hardware and devices troubleshooter'. I am cautiously optimistic that the troubleshooter resolved the issues (perhaps only until the next Windows 10 update). If the basic expectation that on-and-off is completely reliable, then the Surface Book is a marvel to behold in style and functionality. I still recommend the Surface Book. At the same time, be prepared to be patient, open the box and turn it on before you leave the store, and run troubleshooter if you encounter start-up problems later.

The company I work for has thrown in the towel with keeping up with the computer needs of the employees and has gone to a 'Bring Your Own Device' policy. We are allowed to use our own phones and laptops and connect to the network. I took advantage of the opportunity and looked at a lot of options for portability, mobility, power, speed, reliability, functionality, weight, and cost. I needed something that could run all the typical Office applications as well as work well with Adobe. I also wanted something that could be a tool for typing long documents, creating big presentations, could do multi-media editing and could turn into a notebook for handwriting notes and capturing sketches. This computer has it all. The only down side was the lack of a HDMI port, however, I picked up a multi-media adapter for $12 on Amazon and now I can hook up a second screen via HDMI, VGA or DVI with email on one screen, and another application on the other screen.