Microsoft Surface Book 3 (15-inch) review
Our Verdict
The Surface Book 3 is bully at beingness the ideal tablet and laptop hybrid, and just very adept at everything else.
For
- Neat premium build quality
- Fantastic webcam
- Proficient bombardment life (as a laptop)
- Bright display
- Long battery life with keyboard
Against
- Middling functioning
- Expensive
- Thick hinge
- Brusk battery life without keyboard
Tom'southward Guide Verdict
The Surface Book 3 is smashing at beingness the ideal tablet and laptop hybrid, and just very good at everything else.
Pros
- +
Great premium build quality
- +
Fantastic webcam
- +
Good bombardment life (as a laptop)
- +
Bright display
- +
Long battery life with keyboard
Cons
- -
Middling operation
- -
Expensive
- -
Thick hinge
- -
Short battery life without keyboard
When I found out I'd be writing our Microsoft Surface Book 3 review, I was excited considering I'd never gotten to exam either of its predecessors, and its format is more than intriguing. While the Surface Go 2 and Surface Pro 7 make the 2-in-1 format work with Type Covers and kickstand tablets, neither is groovy in my lap. The Surface Volume format, nonetheless, with its traditional keyboard deck and docking tablet, seem on newspaper like the ideal 2-in-1.
And while the Surface Book 3'due south screen is bright, its chassis has a strong build quality and its keyboard is cracking, this 2-in-1 falls short of my hopes. Its middling performance does non match its loftier price, it's lack of Thunderbolt 3 is bad for pros and its gap-hinge design is still unsightly. Merely at the terminate of the mean solar day, I tin notwithstanding come across how many folks will dearest this machine, specially its super abrupt webcam that beats every other laptop'south selfie-shooter. It might not get a high spot on our all-time laptops listing, merely it's still a compelling PC worth considering.
| Surface Volume 3 (xiii.5-inch) | Surface Book 3 (15-inch) | |
| Starting Price | $1,599 (integrated graphics) / $1,999 (discrete GPU) | From $2,299 |
| Screen | 13.5-inch, 3000 x 2000 | fifteen-inch, 3240 x 2160 |
| CPU | Core i5-1035G7, Cadre i7-1065G7 | Cadre i7-1065G7 |
| Graphics | Intel Iris Plus, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti |
| RAM | 8GB, 16GB, 32GB | 16GB, 32GB |
| SSD | 256GB, 512GB, 1TB | 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth v.0 | Wi-Fi half-dozen, Bluetooth five.0, Xbox Wireless |
| Estimated battery life | 15.5 hours with keyboard attached | 17.5 hours with keyboard attached |
| Ports | two USB Type-A, 1 USB Type-C, SD Menu, 3.5mm sound | 2 USB Type-A, 1 USB Blazon-C, SD Card, iii.5mm audio |
| Cameras | 5MP front-facing; 8MP rear-facing | 5MP front-facing; 8MP rear-facing |
| Audio | Dual far-field mics, Front-facing stereo speakers w/ Dolby Atmos | Dual far-field mics, Forepart-facing stereo speakers west/ Dolby Atmos |
| Dimensions | 12.3 ten 9.14 x 0.9 inches | 13.five x 9.87 x 0.9 inches |
| Total weight | 3.38 pounds; iii.62 pounds with GPU | four.two pounds |
| Tablet weight | 1.59 pounds (both models) | 1.eight pounds |
Microsoft Surface Volume 3: Price and configurations
I hope you prospective Surface Book 3 owners have been saving! The 15-inch Surface Book 3 nosotros tested starts at $ii,299, and while its tenth Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and 16GB of RAM are prissy, its 256GB of SSD space is too little at this rich a cost point. The xiii.5-inch Surface Book 3 starts at $1,599, with a config that has a tenth Gen Intel Cadre i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.
The 15-inch model we tested packs an Intel Core i7-1065G7 CPU, 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD and the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q GPU. Information technology costs $2,799, plenty to brand me say "lord mercy." Those with deeper pockets that can beget to shell out $iii,699 can max it out with a 1TB SSD and the Nvidia Quadro RTX 3000 GPU with Max-Q.
Microsoft Surface Book 3: Design
I love the premise of the Surface Book 3: a truthful laptop (no kickstand or keyboard embrace) that detaches to give you a tablet. In my lap on my couch the Surface Volume 3 feels a lot more than stable than the Surface Pro seven or Surface Become 2, because its strong-feeling matte-greyness magnesium chassis is minimalist when information technology comes to design touches.
The fewer lines and seams on a device, the better. It only looks make clean. Particularly when I compare it to the other laptops and tablets littered effectually my abode office, and realize that the Surface Book 3 is fingerprint-resistant similar I was asparagus-resistant equally a kid.
That crinkly swivel is still non great. When Microsoft first debuted the Surface Volume and its retracting swivel, information technology looked cool enough for some to overlook the weird gap it creates. Years later, that hinge feels like a compromise that Microsoft should have solved, considering it still looks like the hinge isn't fully airtight. Similarly, the curvature at the height of the keyboard deck looks like the laptop'south internal battery is bulging.
The 4.3-pound Surface Book 3 might not exist heavy for its class, but at 13.5 ten 9.9 ten 0.v - 0.ix inches, it'south hinged side makes it thicker than the Dell XPS 15 (2020) (4.2 pounds, 14.1 ten 9.3 10 0.7 inches) and the MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) (four.3 pounds, 14.i x 9.7 x 0.6 inches).
Microsoft Surface Book 3: Ports
Professionals know that one USB-C port is barely plenty, and the Surface Book 3 needs to exist taught that lesson. Armed with a unmarried non-Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port (side by side to a Surface Connect port on the right) and dual USB-A three.1 ports and an SD card slot on the left, the Surface Volume 3's port selection doesn't experience especially pro.
The xvi-inch MacBook Pro has 4 Thunderbolt three ports, while the XPS 15 has dual Thunderbolt iii ports, plus a power-charging USB-C, an SD memory reader — and it comes with a USB-C to USB-A adapter. While I like the fact that the Surface Book 3 has both USB-C and USB-A ports, its lack of Thunderbolt three is a disappointment for the pro-level users looking to extend their screens to 4K monitors.
Microsoft Surface Book three: Display
Watching a 4K nature video shot in Costa rica, I felt immediately immersed by the Surface Book 3'due south crisp xv-inch 3240 x 2160-pixel console. Not only did I meet hairs of moss coming out of a tree, as an emmet carried a leaf across it, only the up-shut texture of a broad-eyed frog looked amazingly crisp. The greens of the frog's topside and the oranges of its underside looked accurate, neither oversaturated nor muted. The reds of its optics also looked peculiarly strong.
Our colorimeter rated the Surface Book 3'due south screen as producing 101% of the sRGB spectrum. That's peachy, but the XPS 15 (115%) and 16-inch MacBook Pro (114%) both pump out more color.
The Surface Volume 3'south screen also gets plenty bright, as our light gun picked upward a maximum of 402 nits. That'due south non enough, though, for colors not to slightly darken when viewed at 35 degrees to the left and right, simply information technology however beats the 371-nit XPS 15. The 429-nit MacBook Pro gets fifty-fifty brighter.
The Surface Book iii's 15-inch panel offers responsive touch-based input. I experienced smooth scrolling as I skimmed through the Get-go Menu and large Chrome docs. It besides speedly recognized taps and navigational gestures every bit I navigated Windows ten.
Microsoft Surface Book 3: Keyboard, touchpad
Testing the Surface Book 3 keyboard out on the 10fastfingers typing test, I apace noticed that this Surface is a joy for typing. While I hitting a respectable (for me) 72 words per minute, not besides far from my eighty wpm average, that speed was inconsequential compared to how Microsoft gets the key-click feel right. Not only does each primal take a pleasant amount of feedback, but each has enough vertical travel to prevent that pain of repeatedly bottoming-out, hitting the deck of the deck of the keyboard as much as you lot're clicking the fundamental.
The Surface Book 3'due south four.1 x 2.75-inch glass touchpad is i of the all-time I've always used. It read my taps and swipes precisely, and offered speedy and smooth scrolling.
Microsoft Surface Book 3: Audio
Listening to Run The Jewels' "Ooh La La" on the Surface Book three, I was pleased with the Surface Volume 3'due south speakers. Not simply do they get loud enough for a laptop, but there's some bass in there and vocals come up through clearly every bit well.
My favorite part of the Surface Book 3 sound is that its speakers are located on both sides of its display (for when it's discrete), which make it feel like sound is coming from all around the laptop, and non from below, every bit most laptops speakers are in the deck.
That being said, the XPS xv and xvi-inch MacBook Pro (especially the latter) produce strong sound that my colleagues take raved about, while I wouldn't tell someone to use the Surface Book iii as their new sound arrangement.
Microsoft Surface Book 3: Performance
We tested a high-finish Surface Book iii, armed for multitasking excellence with an Intel Core i7-1065G7 CPU and 32GB of RAM. That's more than plenty to stay fast and responsive during my normal 12 Chrome tabs plus a 1080p YouTube video split-screen test, so I added a half dozen Edge tabs, Spotify and 1Password. Still not a stumble.
Unfortunately, the Surface Book'due south U-series processor doesn't really compare well to the H-series chips in the XPS 15 and 16-inch MacBook Pro. For example, the Surface Book three scored only 3,831 on the multi-core Geekbench v examination, falling to the higher scores of 6,174 from the XPS fifteen (Intel Core i7-10750 with 32GB of RAM) and vii,250 from the MacBook Pro (9th Gen Core i9, 32GB of RAM).
On the Handbrake video conversion test, where we transcode a 4K video to 1080p, the Surface Volume 3 completed the task in 21 minutes and 31 seconds, which is far slower than the XPS 15 (x:fifteen) and MacBook Pro (eight:00). The average is 18 minutes and 35 seconds.
The 512GB PCIe SSD in the Surface Book iii gave information technology a rare comparative win, duplicating 5GB of data in half dozen seconds — which translates to a speed of 862.6 megabytes per 2nd. The 512GB SSD in the XPS 15 posted a slower rate of 221.iii MBps.
Microsoft Surface Book 3: Graphics and gaming
The Surface Volume 3's Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti with Max-Q GPU (4GB of vRAM) proved potent against the competition. It took a win on our GTA V test (Very High settings at 1080p), playing the open world crime game at 55 fps, a leg in a higher place the 42 fps rate we saw in the XPS xv (Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti GPU).
On Shadows of the Tomb Raider, the Surface Book 3 posted a rate of 55fps (at 1080p at the highest graphics settings), that towers above the 27 fps rate (at 1920 x 1200 at the very high graphics) from the 16-inch MacBook Pro (with AMD Radeon 5500M with 8GB RAM). It should be noted that Macs and PCs run games in different ways, so differences are going to exist inevitable.
Microsoft Surface Volume iii: Battery life
You'll get great day to day mileage out of the Surface Book 3 as a laptop — but not as a tablet. The Surface Book three lasted 11 hours and ten minutes on our battery test (web surfing at 150 nits of effulgence), but it only fabricated it iii hours and 27 minutes when its battery-bolstered keyboard was detached. The sixteen-inch MacBook Pro (10:55) ran a little short of the Surface Book iii'south time and XPS 15 (11:53) outlasted information technology.
Microsoft Surface Book 3: Cameras
While most laptops shouldn't be as expensive as the Surface Volume 3, every loftier-terminate laptop should take the same 5MP front-facing camera that rests in the top bezel of this ii-in-1. Not only does its capture crisp selfies — though they're drastically improved by some natural light — but it records 1080p video, letting you look clear, not fuzzy, on your next Zoom telephone call.
Its 8MP rear-mounted photographic camera is also pretty darn skillful (non leave your telephone in your pocket peachy, but decent enough). Photos I snapped around my apartment picked upward small details from my t-shirt collection, showing how some designs have begun to bit over the years.
Microsoft Surface Volume 3: Rut
This is i cool customer, though its tablet fashion gets a little warm. After we streamed 15 minutes of HD video on the Surface Book 3, our heat gun captured ratings on its touchpad, keyboard and underside that were all within the range of 74 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit, well under our 95 degree comfort threshold.
And so, since undersides of laptops typically get hot, we went looking for where exactly the Surface Book iii does estrus up. It turns out that the space around the Microsoft logo on the eye of the back of the tablet had jumped to around 91 degrees. That's neither egregiously hot nor is that a place people will agree the tablet, by, so it'south non a big deal.
Microsoft Surface Book 3: Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Book three'southward got all the makings of the laptop/tablet hybrid that nosotros're withal looking for, giving both a solid tablet and excellent laptop experiences. Just as comparative criterion tests have shown in this Surface Book 3 review, fifty-fifty in its more expensive configurations its performance, battery life and display rarely stand out from the pack, only rarely really beating competitors.
For faster performance and longer bombardment life, plus $400 in savings, y'all can get the Dell XPS 15 we compared the Surface Book three to. The Surface Book 3 nevertheless wins, though, on its versatility, as neither the XPS 15 nor the MacBook Pro's displays detach. So, while Microsoft'due south still got a winner on its hands, information technology feels like the Surface Book 4 should evolve to bear witness that Microsoft can detect a way to innovate, beyond using the webcams that the entire manufacture is withal communicable up on.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/microsoft-surface-book-3
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