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Introduction
Billed as a MacBook Pro killer, the Surface Book shares a similar machined metal unibody construction, island-style keyboard, high resolution display and glass trackpad as its competitor. With its sharp, angular wedge profile, you’d be forgiven if you thought the Surface Book is a futuristic creation of famed Apple designer Jony Ive.
Yet while the Surface Book may borrow from Apple’s design ethos, Microsoft is positioning the laptop as a clear competitor to the MacBook Pro. In a direct comparison, Panos Panay, head of hardware at Microsoft, proudly proclaimed that the Surface Book performance is twice as fast as the MacBook Pro.
And the similarities end here as Microsoft and Apple take radically different approaches when it comes to the vision of tablet and laptop computing.
Design
Even though the Surface Book and MacBook Pro share similar 13-inch frames, silver body and machined metal unibody construction, the Surface Book looks more modern with its sharp edges, and dramatic wedge design, compared to the softer curves on Apple’s notebook.
The Surface Book also has a more pronounced hinge design, which Microsoft is dubbing the Dynamic Fulcrum Hinge. While the hinge adds to the tech-inspired design of the Surface Book, it’s not an entirely new design. The Dynamic Fulcrum Hinge looks a lot like the watch band hinge design Lenovo introduced on the Yoga 3 Pro, except that the Surface Book hinge doesn’t rotate the full 360 degrees.
When closed, the Surface Book has a wedge profile, and there is a slight gap between the display and keyboard that adds to the minimalist, airy design. The downside is that the open space can attract dirt and dust when transporting the notebook in a bag.
The 3.34-pound Surface Book weighs about the same as the 3.48-pound MacBook Pro. Impressively, despite having a removable tablet display, the Surface Book only occupies a slightly larger footprint than the MacBook Pro. The Surface Book measures 12.3 x 9.14 x 0.9 inches (31.24 x 23.22 x 2.29cm), while the MacBook Pro measures 12.35 x 8.62 x 0.71 inches (31.37 x 21.89 x 1.80cm).
Form meets function
There are three design elements that set the Surface Book apart from the MacBook Pro.
First, Microsoft brings touchscreen functionality to the Surface Book. Apple, on the other hand, forces you to choose between touch on the iPad and traditional keyboard and touchpad inputs on the MacBook franchise.
Second, the screen detaches. The form factor is actually similar to the Surface Pro 4, but rather than a slim Touch Cover, the Surface Book utilizes a more solid and traditional keyboard dock constructed of metal. The keyboard portion is similar to the keyboard base of a traditional notebook, like the Apple MacBook Pro or HP Spectre x360.
And third, once the screen detaches, users can interact with the display using touch or the new Surface Pen.
Users can use the Surface Book as a laptop, with improved lapability compared to the Surface Pro series, as a tablet, in display mode with the screen docked and facing away from the keyboard or in tablet mode with the screen docked and placed on top of the keyboard.
Performance
To get the maximum performance out of the Surface Book, you’ll need to keep the tablet docked to the keyboard, as that’s where the discrete Nvidia GeForce GPU is housed. To keep performance speedy, the GPU makes use of GDDR5 memory.
The discrete Nvidia graphics is in addition to the discrete Intel HD Graphics that’s part of Intel’s sixth generation Skylake architecture.
Apple will likely update its MacBook Pro to Skylake in the future, but the exact refresh timing is not known. Currently, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is powered by Intel’s fifth generation Broadwell architecture and Intel Iris Graphics 6100, so performance isn’t quite as zippy as with Skylake. Additionally, there is no option for discrete graphics on the 13-inch MacBook Pro. For discrete graphics, you’ll need to move up to the larger 15-inch model.
Microsoft didn’t mention the specific Nvidia graphics chip that is bundled with its Surface Book, but likely the company is using software optimization to extract the most performance. Small business owners who work with copious amounts of data, edit photos and videos or play games on their down time may stand to benefit from the power of having a discrete GPU.
“Ounce for ounce, this is the fastest 13-inch product ever made,” said Panay. Panay says that performance is roughly twice that of a MacBook Pro.
Battery life
Microsoft made a big deal about the battery life of the Surface Book. Microsoft boasts that the Surface Book will achieve 12 hours of battery life on a charge, which is two hours longer than the 10 hours promised by Apple on the MacBook Pro.
Small business owners who work remotely in places without access to a power outlet will appreciate the battery boost. It’s unclear how Microsoft is measuring battery life, and whether the discrete GPU will have any adverse affect on battery numbers.
Another big improvement Microsoft made to battery life is with standby time, with Panay claiming that the Surface Book will experience no power drain when the lid is closed in standby mode.
Power of the Pen
Another key differentiator between Surface Book and the MacBook Pro is the inclusion of the active stylus. Like the Surface Pro 4, Surface Book comes with the Surface Pen, and Microsoft made improvements to its pen that makes inking easier.
One improvement is the inclusion of the eraser at the end of the pen, which Panay claims comes with enough friction to feel like erasing with a real eraser.
Overall, the pen is an evolution of the Surface Pen on the Surface Pro 3, offering 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity and allows you to quickly launch into OneNote with a click of a button.
These features aren’t available on the MacBook Pro. For inking capabilities, you’ll need to invest in the iPad Pro, but Apple Pencil is an optional accessory on that tablet and not included in the price.
Display, ports and conclusion
Display
The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels.
Microsoft claims that the Surface Book has a 13.5-inch screen with 267 pixels per inch, making for a crisp display. This means that Surface Book has slightly more pixels than the MacBook Pro, coming in at 3,000 x 2,000 pixels.
The display aspect ratio is similar to an A4 paper, and Microsoft says that this is a 3:2 aspect ratio. This aspect ratio makes it more natural to use the Surface Book in tablet mode, as it feels more like a printed sheet of paper, but the screen isn’t optimized for video consumption. You’ll see letterboxing when watching 16:9 aspect ratio videos.
On the other hand, the MacBook Pro has a 16:10 aspect ratio.
Connectivity, ports and expansion
Both the Surface Book and MacBook Pro with Retina display comes with similar internal specs. Both computing devices can be configured with up to 16GB of RAM, 128GB to 512GB of solid state storage, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11ac.
There are a few notable differences between the two devices. The first is that while the MacBook Pro comes with two Thunderbolt 2 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader and HDMI port, the Surface Book comes with a more limited selection of ports as it lacks the dual Thunderbolt ports and swaps the HDMI port for the Mini DisplayPort standard.
The Surface Book has two sets of cameras: a 5-megapixel web camera and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The MacBook only has a more limited 720p FaceTime HD camera.
Small business users will likely benefit from the dual camera systems on the Surface Book, which can be used for video conferencing, documentation and scanning. However, the MacBook’s included HDMI port may be more convenient for outputting video than Mini DisplayPort. The screen aspect ratio will boil down to a matter of preference, but both devices come with pixel-dense screens (267ppi on the Surface Book compared to 227ppi on the MacBook Pro).
Conclusion
In terms of sheer performance, you may be getting more out of the Surface Book, but when you add in more storage and memory, the $1,499 (£983, AU$2,091) starting price quickly jumps to $2,699 (£1,771, AU$3,765) on a fully configured system. Apple’s system has a lower $1,299 (£852, AU$1,812) starting point and tops out at $1,799 (£1,180, AU$2,509).
Even though you may be paying less for a MacBook Pro, you may end up paying more if you need a tablet and decide to add an iPad or iPad Pro to your gear bag. What really matters is if you value the flexibility of having a tablet in a single device, and if having a touchscreen and pen support are important to you, then the Surface Book easily outshines the MacBook Pro.
Curiously, even though the Surface Book is targeted at more productive tasks, it lacks the face scanning RealSense 3D camera on the Surface Pro 4 and the fingerprint reader found on the optional Surface Pro 4 Type Cover to make it a truly compelling enterprise or business laptop.
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