Well, this is quite surprising. Microsoft has just unveiled the Surface Book, which the company dubs as the “ultimate laptop.” Even though it’s marketed as a laptop, the screen is actually removable, turning it into a tablet. Equipped with an Intel Skylake processor and an Nvidia GeForce GPU, the first-ever laptop from Microsoft is an interesting product.
In terms of specification, the Surface Book has a 13.5-inch touch display with a pixel density of 267ppi. As the display is optically bonded, it should look really, really good. Other than that, the Surface Book is powered by the latest Intel Skylake processor (Core i5 or i7) and an Nvidia GeForce GPU with GDDR5 memory. However, as the GPU resides in the base (the keyboard, that is), the Surface Book has to be connected to the keyboard in order for it to take advantage of the extra power. Thanks to all of these beefy hardware, Microsoft boldly claims that the Surface Book is twice as fast as the Apple MacBook Pro.
Speaking of which, Microsoft is very proud of the Surface Book’s keyboard as well. With 1.6mm of travel, the keys should provide plenty of cushioning for a satisfying typing experience. The keyboard is also backlit and is apparently “almost silent” to type on. The glass trackpad, on the other hand, has five points of touch sensitivity.
For power users, they would be happy to know that the Surface Book has up to 12 hours of battery life. The Book also has a unique hinge which bends at multiple points, giving it the ability to work as a tablet with the display completely flipped around. Other specifications of the Book include two USB 3.0 ports and a full-size SD card slot.
It seems like Microsoft is targeting Apple’s MacBook Pro with the Surface Book, just like how it’s directly competing with the MacBook Air by introducing the Surface Pro 4. As the company dubs the Book as the “fastest 13-inch laptop ever made anywhere on any planet,” the company is very confident of its first laptop.
The Microsoft Surface Book is available for pre-order from the 7th of October 2015. The base model will retail at US$1,499 (about RM6,460) and comes with a Core i5 processor, 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM (no dedicated graphics card for this variant). The top-of-the-line model, on the other hand, will go for a whopping US$2,699 (around RM11,630), and features a Core i7 processor, 512GB of storage, 16GB of RAM, and an Nvidia Geforce GPU. The Surface Book will go on sale on the 26th of October 2015.
