- This is the Surface Book 3

which Microsoft updated for 2020

with new and faster components on the inside

but left the outside pretty much exactly the same.

Actually, exactly exactly the same.

It's the same.

The idea here is you're supposed

to get a full power pro laptop with a GPU

and lots of horsepower battery in the base,

but if you want, you can

detach it and turn the screen into a tablet.

Now, this idea the first time we saw it was like "whoa"

and then the second time we saw it, it was like "okay, yeah"

and now I feel like with this third iteration,

we finally understand the trade-offs.

The Surface Book 3 isn't a traditional laptop

and that means different trade-offs.

You have to ask yourself how important this really is.

(upbeat music)

Alright, first trade-off with the Surface Book 3,

when you're in the standard laptop mode,

I just think there's little too much bulk.

It's like the volume to power ratio is just a bit off.

It's big and it's thick, even this 13.5 inch version.

Now, the reason for that is because there's so many,

you know, computer guts in here behind the screen

which does make it just a little bit top-heavy.

It's never tippy, but you can really feel

it's a little bit odd when you carry it around.

But, look, it's very well made

and the keyboard here is great.

The trackpad is a little tiny bit on the small side for 2020

but it is super smooth and accurate, precise,

I love the trackpad.

I do wish that there were thunderbolt ports,

but Microsoft has some evidence

that says that thunderbolt ports are insecure.

At least there's usb-c and there is an sd card slot.

Thank you.

No, really, seriously, I mean this.

Thank you.

The screen is great, it's 13.5 inches

and a three by two aspect ratio

so it actually feels really really big,

bigger than other 13 inch laptops

even though the bezels here are substantial.

It also feels really really big

when you use it as a tablet.

This is not like your ultra portable tablet thing.

This is substantial.

Finally, the whole reason this entire system works

is because of this very fancy strong snake hinge

on the locking mechanism and all that

and as neat and cool as it is,

I sort of feel like

this isn't the final form of what a tablet laptop hybrid

is meant to be.

When you close it, the hinge gap here is just really big,

a whole bunch of stuff can get in there,

and it makes the whole thing thicker

than other modern laptops.

It's very very nicely built.

Hardware, I really like surface hardware

but it just feels like it's a little bit ungainly.

(subtle electronic music)

So okay, what's new here?

Well, because it's all internal changes,

we have to talk about some specs.

Here we go.

The big thing is Intel's 10th gen processors.

The basic model of the Surface Book 3

has a Core i5, Intel standard Iris plus Graphics.

Eight gigs of RAM, 256 of storage,

and that goes for 1600 bucks.

This review unit is $2500

which gets you a Core i7,

32 gigs of RAM, 512 of storage,

and the keyboard base here

has a basic Nvidia GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU.

The 15 inch can have an even better GPU.

(sighs)

So, you can spec one of these up to be,

a bit of a beast, but like,

the X-Men live-action movies version of the beast.

Not the super burly one from the comics or the cartoons.

It's a smaller, more refined beast.

Because the thing about the Intel Core i7 chip

that's inside the Surface Book 3

is that on the 13.5 inch and even the bigger 15 inch,

it's the 15 watt version of the Intel chip.

The kind that you usually see in Ultrabooks.

It's not the 45 watt version that you might see

in a Dell XPS 15

or a 16 inch Macbook Pro.

Of course, the reason for that is you can detach this

and they need to keep the processor with the screen

and so, they can't fit, you know,

the higher thermals inside this little tablet here.

So, that is the second trade-off.

You get a slightly less powerful CPU.

Now even with this separate special Nvidia GPU,

this is still not like a traditional gaming laptop.

I mean look, you could definitely do way more gaming

on this thing than you could on an Ultrabook

or a Surface laptop or something like that,

but a traditional gaming laptop, like a Razer

is gonna give you way more power for way less money.

But if you do a bunch of stuff

that leans heavily on the GPU,

like I don't know, CAD drawing or something,

this will be able to take advantage of that,

make your work flow a bit faster

when of course, the thing is docked.

We are gonna run some benchmarks for the full review

and by we, I mean Tom Warren and Monica Chen

who are actually reviewing this thing

so stay tuned for that,

but, tell you what.

Here's the Geekbench score

and here's the Cinebench.

You may now debate in the comments.

Bottom line, there's three main downsides

to the Surface Book 3.

Price, a little bit of power, and bulk.

It's pretty big for a 13 inch laptop.

But in exchange for that,

you get really good quality hardware

because it's a Surface.

You get a clean, Microsoft software experience

without all that extra junk on it.

And, of course, you can remove the tablet.

That's the whole point of this thing,

which means that there's no clean one-to-one,

heads up comparison that I can give you

to another laptop,

because the extra cost that you pay

for a Surface Book 3 doesn't really fit on a spec sheet.

Instead it's about, you know, trade-offs.

Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching.

Let me know in the comments,

are the trade-offs on the Surface Book 3 interesting to you

or do you want something more traditional?

Also if you missed it,

I reviewed the Surface Go 2,

an entirely different set of trade-offs

and you can click and watch that somewhere, here.