The Microsoft Surface Book 2 (15-Inch) Review: Second Time's The Charm
by Brett Howse on December 21, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Microsoft
- Surface
- Pascal
- Surface Book
- Kaby Lake Refresh
Battery Life
The original Surface Book we tested was the Core i5 model, and it offered amazing battery life that the Core i7 model with a discrete GPU couldn’t quite match. With the Surface Book 2 15, the battery capacity has increased, although so has the display size and resolution, so it’ll be interesting to see how that impacts the results.
Our battery life tests include our older 2013 web browsing test, a newer 2016 web browsing test which is more demanding, and a movie playback test. All of our browsing is done with Edge, and movie playback with the built-in Films and TV software, with the display set at 200 nits of brightness.
2013 Light
You feel kind of greedy when you feel like almost 14 hours of browsing isn’t enough, but it felt like the Surface Book 2 might really set a new record with the large 85 Wh of battery capacity. The new model handily outperforms the outgoing Surface Book Core i7 though, despite the larger display and higher resolution.
The tablet itself will still get several hours away from the base, which is more than enough time for the use case of the tablet, which is going to be for short sessions away from the base.
2016 Web
Our newer web test is more demanding of the CPU, and on devices like the Surface Book 2, where the CPU power usage is a significant factor in the overall power drain, the result is less battery life than our older, easier test. At almost ten hours of battery life though, the Surface Book 2 still offers a lot of time off the mains.
Normalized Results
By removing the battery capacity from the equation, we can see the efficiency of each device. Here, the larger battery size is removed, and the Surface Book 2 ends up about midfield. The larger display and higher resolution of the display are a significant impact on the battery life.
To dig in to this a bit more, additional testing was done to see just how much power the display draws. At maximum brightness, and with the system at idle, the display draws 7.65 W of power, while the rest of the system only consumes 1.43 W of power. On our 200 nit display brightness setting, that power requirement of the display drops to 4.1 W, which is still over double what the rest of the system is using at idle. The display is a significant factor, as expected.
Movie Playback
When playing back a movie, the CPU can offload the task to fixed function hardware, so the overall power usage goes down even further than normal. The Surface Book 2 offers tremendous battery life at this task, coming in at close to 15 hours.
This would let you play The Avengers over six times on a single charge. That should be enough for almost any scenario.
With just the tablet, the battery life is still almost five hours of movie playback, which is certainly usable, although I doubt most people would use just the tablet to watch movies due to the size of it.
Charge Time
Despite the larger battery, the 100-Watt AC Adapter charges the battery quite quickly, and both batteries are full in under three hours.
Both batteries charge at the same time, and are almost in lock-step with each other in terms of charge, despite the difference in capacity.
For those interested, the bottom of the tablet features the same Surface Connect port, so you can charge the tablet away from the base if necessary, although most of the time it would be charged when docked.
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Azune - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
What i'd like to know is whether the screen will get yellow spots again if the tablet portion is used too much for writing.Since my SB Gen 1 + my replacement both had that problem after a few months.
mkozakewich - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
You don't need as much pressure on the pen, so I'd recommend just setting it as soft as possible and using it lightly. Most people press really hard on the screen, and that's always problematic. I remember seeing iPhone display models at mobile kiosks, and the screens would ripple under my touch because they'd sustained so much force.Azune - Saturday, December 23, 2017 - link
The part of the screen that i'm writing on is perfectly fine. The edges on the screen, where i am resting my hand, are the problem. Personally i think that the screen isn't reinforced properly for long term writing, to keep the weight of the screen lower.I don't know how to fix that, but personally i think its isn't acceptable for a 1500$+ device to break with its intended usecase after only a few months.
Da W - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
Been looking at Surface Pro stats in the charts and its a very potent tablet indeed, even compared to this monster of a notebook.djayjp - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
Beware:"Despite the power supply replacement, I was still able to get the Surface Book 2 to drain battery even when connected to the wall."
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platf...
Brett Howse - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
I went over this several times in the review.anactoraaron - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
"Our review unit was equipped with a Samsung PM961...." while retail units will be equipped with an inferior toshiba ssd :PBrett Howse - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
That was slightly different, and while component swapping happens, it was the Toshiba SSD that was a faster MLC one in some of the early units. This is a TLC drive but Samsung has gotten very good with TLC in the last couple of years.anactoraaron - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
I would have liked to see a thermal report using something that maxed cpu usage, instead of what was presented. Your Rise of the Tomb Raider graph is great for evaluating the gpu temps and cooling performance for gaming.What about tasks that professionals use that max CPU usage? When the cpu on my 1st surface book was maxed (converting color checked raw images to jpg) the fan was very loud and the processor reached 96c (as reported by Intel XTU). That right there made me pack it up immediately and return it.
If you have a decice aimed at professionals who need and will fully use the calibrated display and don't have a way to properly cool various use cases that professionals may need you have an even more niche product.
What was most disappointing about the SB1 was that the fan even at 100% didn't seem to move any air anywhere! Cpu at 100% and 96c and I couldn't feel any air moving in or out across the entire tablet section. What was the fan doing? Just adding noise?
If I buy a product like this, for professional use, at this price point, longevity being cut short due to exdended high temps cannot be acceptable.
Any chance you can test the cpu cooling ability doing a demanding task for only the cpu? Preferably something that will max all cores 90-100% sustained?
Brett Howse - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
Hi. Yes I just ran Handbrake doing a CPU encode for 30 minutes. In best performance, the device will allow up to 20W on the CPU sustained which leads to temps around 95°C. It peaks at 100 which is the max for the chip right when the task starts since the PL allows up to 30W of power initially.It never goes over 100 though but if you were very concerned about that, you can leave it in Best Battery Life mode and the temp never exceeds the 60s even at a full 15W sustained load.
Over the weekend I'll try to add a chart showing this.