The Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 Review: Surface Essentials
by Brett Howse on March 28, 2019 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Microsoft
- Surface
- Surface Laptop
- KBL-R
- Surface Laptop 2
Battery Life
By Ultrabook standards, the 47.5 Wh battery capacity in the Surface Laptop 2 is on the light side, as some of the competition can offer 60 Wh or so. But Microsoft tends to focus quite a bit on power usage instead of raw capacity, and as a result can eke out extra battery life through other means. The battery is only slightly larger than the 45 Wh in the Surface Pro 6, and it performed well in our battery rundown tests.
To test the battery life, we calibrate displays to 200 nits to make the test as even as possible, and then run through several workloads.
2013 Light
Our lightest test is our oldest, which cycles four webpages per minute. The scripting isn’t a very big task for modern processors. Despite the smaller battery, the Surface Laptop 2 lasted for over 11.5 hours, which is fantastic.
2016 Web
Our web test involves a lot more work for the CPU, and as such the results are generally quite a bit lower than our older light test, and that is the case here again with the Surface Laptop losing over an hour of runtime compared to the light test, but it still came in well above any other laptop we’ve tested, offering over 10.5 hours of runtime.
Movie Playback
Media playback allows the CPU to offload work to fixed function hardware in the media block, which allows most of the processor to go to sleep. The Surface Laptop was able to play back a local movie file for over 15 hours, which is amazing considering the battery capacity here.
Our Tesseract score puts the movie playback into a more usable number. The runtime is divided by the length of a long movie (The Avengers) to get a result in terms of how many movies you can watch in a row. The Surface Laptop 2 is ready for any movie marathon you’re after.
Normalized Results
By removing the battery capacity from the equation, we can take a look at the efficiency of each device. The Surface Laptop 2 outperforms all other laptops we’ve tested here. Microsoft has put a tremendous amount of effort in the getting power consumption in check across their lineup, and the lower display density of the Surface Laptop 2 puts it at the top of their devices, as well as the top of any laptop we’ve tested. It is a truly impressive result.
Charge Time
Microsoft ships the Surface Laptop 2 with a 44 Watt power supply, and in typical Surface fashion it offers an incredibly useful USB charging port built into the brick. The charger connects via the Surface Connect port, which is the same proprietary magnetic connector Microsoft has been using since the introduction of the Surface Pro 3. It’s a great connector, it’s easy to connect, and it offers a light on the side so you know whether or not it’s charging or not. The only thing missing is it would be nice to have the USB-C port for charging as well, which would make travel even easier.
The Surface Laptop 2 isn’t particularity quick at charging, but it’s within a few minutes of the other Surface devices. Microsoft doesn’t seem to want to charge the battery too quickly, which may help with longevity, but thanks to the efforts they’ve put into the battery consumption, they likely don’t need to put as much weight on charging.
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AsParallel - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
Microsoft wants to ensure you can't install Linux on it. The entire surface line is garbage for development, meanwhile windows had been bleeding developers by the thousands. The surface dock staunches that bleed by ensuring 0 compatibility.sbrown23 - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
But they do provide several different distros for Windows Services for Linux, easily downloadable from the Store.The Average - Saturday, March 30, 2019 - link
Why? Ubuntu 18 works like a charm in my SP3. And being a software developer I can tell you that Surface Pro is really great for that. The only thing I don't like in my SP is Windows which I still can't remove because I use some windows only applications.smilingcrow - Monday, April 1, 2019 - link
And the majority of us just yawn at your Linux drooling.DigitalFreak - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
Won't be buying one since they insist on sticking with their stupid Surface Connect Port instead of USB-C or Thunderbolt 3.id4andrei - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
No one in the real world cares about USB-C and even less about TB. The single USB-A port is better than a single USB-C port, for now. The Connect port is brilliant and it's good that it's a mainstay on the Surface line.DigitalFreak - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
"No one in the real world cares about USB-C"Keep telling yourself that, buddy.
The Average - Saturday, March 30, 2019 - link
I still haven't find a use for a USB-C. All my peripherals are type A. But no matter what port you have in your device you will find yourself buying a usb hub with several USB-A ports to expand that single USB Type A/C port.c4v3man - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
USB-C is required for universal docking. Thunderbolt is a great upgrade, that enhances dock reliability and performance in my experience. The Connect Port is a joke, and the ONLY way such a proprietary port would be deemed acceptable is if it fixed standard port flaws, by being far more capable, or more reliable. The Surface Dock is neither of these things, and is just as reliable as a USB-C dock (aka, reliable enough for most but not 100% reliable), but not as reliable as Thunderbolt. Microsoft needs to get with the program ASAP and adopt USB-C at a minimum, and preferably Thunderbolt on at least some of their models. Strike 1.Then again, Microsoft continues to use garbage Wifi chipsets on ethernet-less systems, so the WiFi needs to be the best in the market if they're playing in the premium space. Strike 2.
Finally, systems should be at least mildly serviceable, or otherwise boast "worlds thinnest/lightest/?". Microsoft doesn't boast these things, so 3 strikes... you're out.
Honestly, if they would fix one of these things, I'd consider it. No machine is 100% perfect. But this "unholy trinity" will prevent me from considering any of their machines, short of a surface book 2 (since it has USB-C), however my experience with a detachable display is that I basically never use the feature (1 day a year maybe), so I'd rather have a traditional hinge. So even the surface book 2 isn't much of a contender, but would at least warrant consideration.
Gunbuster - Friday, March 29, 2019 - link
You had to remind everyone about the Avastar ;) Ugg the worst WiFi/Bluetooth in the business.This is rehash what? 30 now? Thirty products in a row Microsoft has used the most buggy and under performing WiFI chipset in the industry...