Microsoft Surface Book First Look

This video, via mobile technology vloggers Pocketnow, is a first look at the new Surface Book.

While the video is for general audiences, it does show that Microsoft is interested in winning over electronic musicians. At their introduction, the company was showing their new laptop as part of an electronic music setup. 

Features:

  • Pen and touch support
  • Ultrathin
  • Intel Core™ i5 and Core™ i7 processors
  • Up to 12 hours of battery life
  • 13.5-inch high-contrast 267 dpi display with improved latency and parallax
  • The screen also detaches and can be used as a tablet

The Microsoft Surface Book starts at $1,499 for the base model (i5/128mb SSD/8GB RAM). The high end model (i7/512GB SSD/16GB RAM) is priced at $2,699.

The pricing puts it about $200 more than a similarly spec’d 13″ Macbook Pro, but the Book features a multi-touch display that can double as a tablet.

25 thoughts on “Microsoft Surface Book First Look

  1. A touch screen surface for music creation seems like it easily is the way to go for the future. I’m sure Apple will make one soon enough, but this could maybe give Microsoft some ground on music production.

      1. yes There is a tablet music making machine from apple called the IPAD

        but it is nothing like a laptop pc or mac

        i am vey interested in the new surface book (and the ipad pro)

        1. It’s a mix bag. To really use that touchscreen of this new Sufrace Book you should use it as a tablet. But as a tablet is runs only 3 hours on his batteries.

  2. Cmon, overpricing even Apple? I’d want one for the features but not at that price. Hopefully other PC manufacturers make cheaper decent alternatives.

    1. You’re comparing it to an iPad, which is a mistake. This thing is made to compete with an MBP, which it is substantially cheaper than. This isn’t a tablet with a keyboard attached to it, it’s a laptop than can detach and function as a tablet. This will run full desktop applications, not mobile apps.

  3. All the components are discrete kids, meaning no integrated chips here. Pushes manufwcturing costs up but arguably sounds better. This is worth the money ino

    1. Thunderbolt isn’t yet supported under Windows due to security concerns. Connecting a Thunderbolt device gives it immediate DMA access to the system in place.

      https://trmm.net/Thunderstrike

      Because Windows is used a lot in Enterprise environments where security is important Thunderbolt support has not been included in Windows. They are working on adding it to Windows 10 if they can resolve the (gaping) security issues with it.

      1. Its just a port like any port…it can be turned off. worst case, you can jam a screwdriver into it and break it, so security isn’t really a concern. We turn these things off all the time.

        1. or the functionality can be limited. for example: a usb port can be used for a keyboard, mouse or it could be used for storage or whatever. we can limit that to include which ever function we want it to have. (storage would be the risk in this case, and we could turn that ability off)

          for access, any service can be over taken by a system account and have access to the root process. you just have to define and control what account has access or permissions to perform the functions you want it to have on your system.

      2. thunderbolt has worked under windows 7 ,8.1 for the past 2 years
        it also works just fine under windows 10

        you can buy a add in card or a motherboard with it built in

  4. nice pinch-zoom delay lag at 2:00 in the video.
    you’d think with such a powerful system something like that would be smoother..
    and that tiles homescreen in windows.. yikes.
    would make a killer fruity loops workstation tho

  5. I won’t use windows on principal. The new version is pretty much designed to spy on people. Back doors built in. I won’t make art on a machine with an OS designed to take away my privacy and whittle away my freedom.

    Just sayin.

    1. they all collect data. I don’t connect my music systems to the web….so whatever data it collects isn’t going anywhere.

      1. OSX and Windows security work very differently. OSX can be made to be secure very easily… windows cannot.

        I use Linux as well (OpenSuse, Tails, etc…) and honestly, I recommend that people air gap their machines as much as possible… use a proxy when you can, use 2 factor auth on everything, and encryption.

        We have a right to privacy. It is essential to artists of all types that we can express ourselves anonymously.

        So yeah… I have multiple laptops. Two for music (macs) that are airgapped. An iPad for day to day stuff (with location services/updates/fetching/etc off). A Linux computer via tor and paid proxy for business and all purchases. It stores everything that needs to be secure. An old iPod touch for encrypted communication for business. An iPhone for calling my wife and so co-workers and clients can talk. a usb key running tails for using other people’s computers.

  6. “What if we could do for laptops what we did for tablets?”

    You mean create an amazing hardware platform and then sell almost none of them?

  7. The hardware looks nice, but too bad it runs Windows. Windows 10 is only a few steps away from Chrome OS as far as being a low feature OS designed mainly to spam you with targeted advertising.

  8. “Microsoft is interested in winning over electronic musicians.”
    Tough job trying that with just two USB controllers and nothing else to offer.
    You could buy many Windows based Notebook with touch years ago and then the industry decided touch wasn’t OK for Notebooks so it disappeared. (Bought a 1920×1080 NB then and it runs W10/Ubuntu fine with touch, best purchase ever). Then the new tech was 2 in 1, separate the NB keyboard from the Touch screen. Now the newest “innovation” is to attached the screen (a.k.a tablet): back to a keyboard. Progress ? Hello Microsoft, are you listening, where is AVB and TB3 ? Not all of us sit in a train, bus plane or coffee shop making bleeps (not there is anything wrong with that) but some people need real quality audio and low latency hardware. Talk about that to make musicians interest to connect (currently TB/AVB almost all Mac only) hardware sound modules to a PC. And really touch a DAW on a tiny screen ?

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