Surface Book - What do you think?

If you didn't see Microsoft's press event they released the Surface Pro 4 but also a full laptop dubbed the 'Surface Book'. Looks like it could be a great computer for our line-of-work. Portable, built well, runs windows. (Sorry real serial port users). I'm not a big fan of anything less than 15" in a laptop, but this could certainly do everything I need it to do (including running a few virtual machines) and much more portable.

I've been lugging around a Dell m6800, now an m4800 the past few years for work and these things are ridiculously large. 4 years ago they had to be, but now being able to get 16GB of ram and a 512 ssd in a package like this, that is pretty impressive. I hoped work would have at least gone with the m3800 but people can't let go of the CD drive I guess.

I've been looking to get a Macbook Pro but have been waiting for when they release their Skylake version. I've also looked at getting a Surface 3, simply for electronic hand written note taking and for my pdf manual repository. Much easier to flip through manuals in a tablet than a PC. And if I could take hand written notes I'd be super happy. This new laptop seems right up my alley. Anyone else check this out?

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/devices/surface-book

I may check it at the Microsoft Store around here. We just switched over to all LENOVO and its not bad. The critical things I consider important are enough USB ports, ram, and SSD. The lenovo T540 aren't too bad but IT @%$# me with a T440p instead (14" screen). Sigh, I wish we can BYOD.

I've got the Surface Pro 3, and love it. It does support an external display if I want, but the tablet display itself shows more of a program than my 26" desktop displays do due to the resolution.

I have a 'mini-dock' for it, that provides 4 USB ports, a full Gigabit Ethernet port, and another displayport output, as well as act as a power adapter. It is small enough to keep on when I'm using the tablet on the floor.

The product I am interested in is the new Lumia 950 phone. With the Lumia continuum box, it becomes a full PC.

3000 x 2000 pixels @ 13.5"
I would need a magnifying glass.

JesperMP said:

3000 x 2000 pixels @ 13.5"
I would need a magnifying glass.

Click to expand...

Me too .

The resolution is a bit excessive, but beautiful on photos and such. You can change it by adding custom resolutions to the graphics driver, which works much better then letterboxing or scaling the display. I do that when my eyes get tired.

I have been waiting for the Surface Pro 4 but on seeing this I was somewhat gobsmacked. Already tried to buy one but it's not out in the UK (could be up to six months). You can get them on Ebay for a mark up - but I worry about the warranty.

I have a love/hate relationship with high resolution monitors. I absolutely love how it looks, especially programs like Word, Excel, Outlook. However, it's because they are aware of high DPI settings and can properly scale to your DPI scaling.

I have a Dell m4000 15" laptop, with a native resolution o 3840 x 2160. For windows 7 to have proper text sizing/icons to look right at that resolution you have to set the DPI to 200%. Virtually looks the same as if it were at 1920 x 1080 at 100% DPI scaling. However its hit-or-miss if the applications you use will recognize this 200% DPI setting and scale correctly or not. Some programs do some don't, some do. Apple doesn't have this problem with their Retina displays. Usually it's my automation software that is really hit-or-miss which is disappointing. Then I have to change it back to 1920 x 1080. I have a feeling this will be a hassle for a number of years.

I pre ordered mine today. I have a mac book pro running a couple VM's for travel now and I have a Dell Precision M6800 for around the plant and has lots of VM's on it but I hate to travel with it.

I normally carry a surface pro 3 and an IPad with me also. The Surface book will take the place of the mac book pro and surface pro 3 for travel.

Now if we could only virtualize a mac OS to run Ipad apps on a windows tablet.