Microsoft Surface Book Owners Lounge

Welcome to the Microsoft Surface Book Owners Lounge.

This first page of the thread will be regularly updated. Your contributions and postings in the thread are welcome!

Microsoft announces the Surface Book:


Reviews:

• Tech Radar:
  http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews...etbooks/microsoft-surface-book-1306306/review
• Digital Trends:
  http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-surface-book-hands-on/
• The Verge:
  http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/6/9456137/microsoft-surface-book-laptop-hands-on
  
• Engadget:
  http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/06/microsoft-surface-book-hands-on/
  
• PCMag:
  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2492656,00.asp

Specifications:
Building the page up, will continue soon!!

 

10/19/2015, Microsoft just charged my credit card for the surface book... that means its probably shipping today .

 

My card was charged yesterday as well, though I was one of those who had to re-enter ## after talking to bank about why the charge failed. I got everything corrected in time. Sooo...here we go.

 

If past Surface events are any indication, it will still arrive on the 26th, which is the release day. Hate to rain on your parade. Hope you enjoy your SBs.

 

Yep, I've had same experience as Bronsky. I pre-ordered both a SP2 and my current SP3, and they were charged a week or so early, both arriving on the official release day.

Curious, which model did you guys go with? I'm still leaning towards a SP4 as I need the tablet form factor primarily, but glad to see the SB... especially with a dGPU.

Enjoy!

 

I went with the SB i7, 16, 512...did not need the 512, 256 (as in my SP3) would have been fine, but it was not an available choice on the 6th. I absolutely did want the i7, 16G RAM and the dGPU.

 

Congrats, sounds like it's going to be an amazing machine. Hopefully it's as cool as I'm imagining it to be.

 

According to FedEx, mine is schedule to arrive Friday 10/23 by 10:30AM. I ordered the SB i5/8/256/dGPU with 10% edu discount + 10% cashback (via Discover double cashback) .

 

still have not gotten a Track #...but they charged the card on Monday. And with my luck, it is coming from Santiago, Chile, via surface, to just 30 miles from MSFT Headquarters in Redmond. sigh.

Deryl in WA-WA-WA

 

How did you get edu and discover discount at the same time??? thanks!

 

There is a new pre-order configuration available for the Surface Book in the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft Surface Book - 1TB / 16GB / Intel Core i7 / dGPU - Ships by 1/22/2016 $3,199.00
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...c_id=916473501088&CA_6C15C=120177510000014955

 

Some essential accessories I'm thinking about:

Bluetooth mouse (so to not waste half the USB ports)
Rubber feet to make it more stable (see Paul Thurrott's review)
Some sort of sleeve to hold that Bluetooth mouse, the power adapter, and a few converters (Displayport to HDMI, USB to Ethernet)

 

My i7 512 book shipped arrives Monday

 

The Surface Book w/ dGPU and 128GB SSD are now available for 1,699 (Now cheapest dGPU Config available)

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...459594)(TnL5HPStwNw-rUZZ8If__G8c8yeH5FQslQ)()

 

That config is also the only one shipping, Oct 26th - Monday - all the others are shipping weeks / months away...

Update: Looks like they sold out stock of that 128GB dGPU model, or it was a mistake, as it is gone now... lowest end dGPU Surface Book is now a 256GB i5 w/8GB RAM @ $1899

 

Can you elaborate on this, I might have to see if my alumni .edu address is still working, I get 5% back till Dec on my discover if I shop at Amazon not sure how the microsoft / discover cashback works.

 

Pretty cool that microsoft is offering a lower cost of entry for the discrete GPU option. I am really enticed by that model, but I have to wait out some reviews to see how the GPU is in real world use. I know its no gaming laptop replacement, but it will be better than trying to use a surface pro 3 to game on while traveling, thats for sure.

 

Comic book artist Dan Parent test-drives the Surface(s)


Tested: Microsoft Surface Book Review


Surface Pro 4 geeky Artist Review (Surface Book too!)


Microsoft Surface Book Vs Surface Pro 4 Comparison/Review

 

1. Add an item through the microsoftstore edu portal to get 10% discount.
2. Go through the Discover.com Rewards Microsoftstore portal for 5% off. If you have added or have a double cash back option on your card, it will be 10%.
3. Check out.

 

Hmmm, some good points.

Already have a MSFT Sculpt mouse (BT) for my "docked" SP3 so will not change it for the SB.

I saw Paul Thurrot's podcast about his experience on the train and the SB slip-sliding away. While that may be a train problem, it applies elsewhere so I will also look for reasonable stickem pads that blend with the silver body etc. But will see how the already built in "grippy strips" actually perform in my daily less-than-high-speed train environment.

I did buy, and it was delivered yesterday, a shoulder bag in a fairly stiff leatherette similar to what I use for my SP3 - but bigger. The company logo on the bag is Sumaclife. Not bad looking and does not give away the contents nor easily allow for pickpocket. But, it may be a bit too svelte for chargers and MSFT docks.

I will likely make a Monday trip to my local MSFT store to see about the new dock. I use one now made up of a powered 10 port USB 3.0 hub, for connecting phone, 1GB Ethernet, MSFT KB, and back up HDD, but also DVR and BR drives though they are not normally plugged in, nor is the HDD since I am more and more confident in OneDrive to back me up.

I gotta find a better speaker and speaker attachment. I now use the earphone jack (3.5mm) to plug into a desktop radio and speaker. Maybe better to go back to an LED monitor with speakers and use a USB connection. OTOH, if someone can figure out a way to get the MDP to do sound like that other company does then certainly that is the way to go: built in stereo speakers with some range not a cheese ass monaural operation like I have. OTOOH, I could get a fairly high quality BT speaker set that doesn't take up much desk space.

Been thinking about a car charger as well to add a few maH between meetings.

 

My wife called all around on Monday, to every store we could think of. Most of the Bestbuy stores only had the base models. I wanted the i7, 16GB, 512GB model, and had one preordered at the Microsoft Store. After calling 6 Bestbuy stores, she finally found one with the model I wanted at the busiest store in Orlando, but they wouldn't hold it -- what good is my Bestbuy Rewards Elite status, if it doesn't really allow them to hold a laptop for an hour! We hopped in the car and drove as fast as we could to the store; it took almost an hour to get there. Once we entered the store, we found out that they only received one of the high-end models. Luckily, I was the first person there to get it.

I am really loving the bugger. The wifi is a bit buggy and slow, and I find the tablet hard to remove, but I am overall really happy with it. My Macbook Pro 15" was given to my daughter, so the first thing I did was compare the two. The Surface Book really does have that "Apple Quality" fit and finish to it.

Today was my second day with the unit, and I finally decided to put Steam on it. I installed Shadow of Mordor, and noticed that it set everything to Custom Low settings and the resolution was set to 33% (999x666). The benchmark was showing around 78FPS. I moved the resolution to 50% (1500x1000) and the benchmark showed an average of 43FPS. It is very playable at this rate though. I moved back to 33%, and tried medium settings (except for textures), and it got around 33FPS. I really think that once the drivers mature, it may be playable at medium settings. I have hopes that someone will get some hacked drivers that improve the performance.

My Surface Pro 3 would really bother me with how quickly it heated up, and how much it would throttle all the time. I have the Core i7 version, and it was hotter than the Core i5 Surface Pro 3. So far, the Surface Book hasn't really heated up, and I haven't noticed any throttling. If it is, it is very slight. What an improvement! I will probably give the SP3 to my sister for Christmas now.

 

battery life of my i5 surface book with dGPU has not been steller, right at maybe 6 hours, at 50 percent battery or below. internet and word processing only. installed geforce experience to make sure the video card wasn't running in the background or anything. any other real-world battery experience from you guys? the 10 hour plus battery is one of the reasons i went with the book, and cancelled my hp spectre x2 which was looking pretty good.

 

6 hours @ 50% (even 40%) would seem mathematically to make it to 10hrs, does it decline sharply at that point?

 

Wanted to checkout battery life. Ran the powercfg report and not much showed up since not much history at this juncture. It did show that there was a design capacity of 17,902/51,000 mWh. The max charge at this time is 18,577/52,042 so a bit of plus side fudging on MSFT part. I took off the tablet and read a kindle sci-fi space battle book for 3:29 and charge went from 100% to 9%. I did play a scrabble like game on line for part of the time (spellit) and was on-line all the time. I used 75% brightness which was fine. I know that is light usage but battery performed just as expected. Looks now as if it will take 2 hours to charge, maybe 2:15. So far today, pleased with my purchase i7, 512,16, dGPU, running 572.

 

Wanted to checkout battery life. Ran the powercfg report and not much showed up since not much history at this juncture. It did show that there was a design capacity of 17,902/51,000 mWh. The max charge at this time is 18,577/52,042 so a bit of plus side fudging on MSFT part probably to stay on the good side of the lawyers. I took off the tablet and read a kindle sci-fi space battle book for 3:29 and charge went from 100% to 9%. I did play a scrabble like game on line for part of the time (spellit) and was on-line all the time. I used 75% brightness which was fine. I know that is light usage but battery performed just as expected. Looks now as if it will take 2 hours to charge, maybe 2:15. So far today, pleased with my purchase i7, 512,16, dGPU, running 572.

 

Wanted to checkout battery life. Ran the powercfg report and not much showed up since not much history at this juncture. It did show that there was a design capacity of 17,902/51,000 mWh. The max charge at this time is 18,577/52,042 so a bit of plus side fudging on MSFT part probably to stay on the good side of the lawyers. I took off the tablet and read a kindle sci-fi space battle book for 3:29 and charge went from 100% to 9%. I did play a scrabble like game on line for part of the time (spellit) and was on-line all the time. I used 75% brightness which was fine. I know that is light usage but battery performed just as expected. Looks now as if it will take 2 hours to charge, maybe 2:15. So far today, pleased with my purchase i7, 512,16, dGPU, running 572.

 

Guys, I'm thinking of getting Surface Book Performance Base with the highest spec (16GB 1TB) as my 2nd laptop.
I've been reading a lot of reliability problems on Amazon and Microsoft Store reviews.
How's your Surface Book holding up guys, after 6-12 months of use?

 

There were quite a few early problems with the Surface Book. They have largely been ironed out. You may want to wait until Microsoft's London meeting on October 31, 2017 to see if there are any announcements about a new SB. Odds are that there won't be one but can't hurt to wait. Here is a good thread from this forum's sister site. http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/surface-book-discussion-thread.67851/page-203

 

Yeah, i actually posted the same thing over there )
it seems Surface Book doesn't generate the same amount of "forum activity" here compared to other laptops.

 

I had SB for a few months. Came to the conclusion that it is only a device for the small niche of people who want a Surface laptop with dedicated graphics and very good pen support for artistic purposes.

It was absolutely useless as a normal 2 in 1. Tablet portion had 1.5 hour battery and 0 ports besides a headphone jack. Ended up only using it as a laptop, and rarely flipped the screen as it needed to be restarted. As a laptop there are much better options.

 

Wait, what? Since when flipping SB "clipboard" need restart?
I watch reviews on youtube and you can flip the screen just fine without the need to restart Windows.

 

If you have GPU base, you need to restart when you reattach the "Clipboard" to base.

The thing is completely pointless if you do not want GPU base... Just get the Surface Pro (Surface 5). It is only a heavier Surface Laptop with limited tablet functionality at that point.

 

No... you do not have to restart. You have to wait for whatever's using the dGPU to stop using it.

It's pointless to YOU but other people will love it.

 

You misread. I owned one. You definitely have to restart to re-attach the GPU base. I hope they change this in newer versions. I would re-attach the tablet and it would prompt me to restart to be able to use GPU.

And yes, the non-GPU base model is pointless. It is just a heavier Surface Pro without a dGPU (they are the same price if you add keyboard to i5 Surface Pro option with same specs). Microsoft themselves seem to acknowledge this by only offering 1 no GPU option out of 7 options.

 

Nope don't have to restart when reattaching or detaching at all on SB2

 

Not sure when you owned one or what might have been wrong with it, but I've owned a SB1 i7/16GB w/ dGPU since launch (did have some initial software issues unrelated to this but very stable once MS ironed out the bugs) and detaching or re-attaching has never required a restart. Not sure what was wrong with yours. I can detach and re-attach all I want without issue, no restart needed. And yes, once re-attached the dGPU works great when needed. If by chance something is using the dGPU you can't detach, but that makes sense.

I have now also purchased a SB2 15", and it too behaves as expected with .... I can detach and re-attach whenever I need and no restarts are required, including use of the Nvidia gpu.

Not sure why your experience went the way it did... I use these machines daily for work and play, both as a laptop and a tablet as needed.