 When we reviewed the Surface Laptop a year ago, we ended up giving it a pretty tepid sorta recommendation. But since then, Alex, who writes most of our laptop reviews, started using it as his daily driver and then just never stopped. So what is it that gives the Surface Laptop that kind of staying power? Why is it that Alex, who can use any laptop he wants, would keep coming back to it? And why does Alex put double spaces after periods in his writing? Memory Express is the go-to place for your electronic needs and services in Canada, and they're opening a new store in Victoria, BC. They're hiring for all positions, so check them out at the link in the video description. ["Surfaces Laptop"] When your job description is literally writer, a good keyboard is crucial. And I think it's fair to say that the Surface Laptop has one of the best, if not the best keyboard on the market. There's something about the way the keys go down that just feels great. It's crazy how much tactile feedback they've been able to get into such a compact device. And the Alcantara wrist rest makes typing just that little bit more comfortable. Now we actually expressed concerns about its long-term durability, but I'm actually very pleased to say that this unit, thank you, which has been subjected to some pretty harsh conditions over the last year, hasn't yet shown any signs of wear. Below the keyboard though, is the first missed opportunity of the Surface Laptop 2. The touchpad is frosted glass topped, it's responsive, it's accurate, overall it's great. But even as only a very occasional MacBook Pro user, it is really hard to go back to a small touchpad, and I'd like to see it expanded next time around. One thing that did get fixed this time though, is performance. Now for our purposes, the seventh gen dual core processor from last time hasn't been a huge issue. I mean, we all have desktops whenever we need more horsepower. But if this was your only computer, or even if you wanted to do some light photo editing on the road, you'd probably be frustrated that similarly thin devices have been available for months with quad core processors. Not anymore. Microsoft bumped the Surface Laptop 2 to a quad core eighth gen processor, and while they were at it, they also canned the entry level four gig model to prevent anyone buying such an otherwise premium device from having a pretty bad time running Windows 10. The entry level unit is now a totally different machine from last year's, and it makes it much easier for us to recommend it with confidence. While we're talking about great things that are great, the screen is great. For things like surfing the web, and writing in Word, the three by two aspect ratio lets you see that much more of your work. And when you combine that with excellent, accurate color, deep blacks, and the top of the line touch capabilities that we've come to expect from Microsoft's Surface lineup, well, it's really hard to come up with complaints for the screen. That is unless your favorite online content creator just made the switch to an 18 by nine aspect ratio for their videos, leaving you with even more massive black bars than you otherwise would have had. Above the screen in what is obviously the correct place, you'll find the webcam. Which again is about as good as they come and implements Windows Hello facial recognition perfectly. By the time Linus has his Bladestalt even open, I'm already signed in. And even though we've had other Windows Hello IR laptops here, they have the camera below them and stuff. So it normally takes longer to register the face. With that said, we still maintain that being the best webcam on a laptop is kind of like beating all the kids at the local elementary school at Foursquare. Like there's still a lot of room for the entire industry to do better in this category. Though I'm not sure I can say the same about the build quality. Microsoft puts a lot of work into the design of its devices and it shows. Chassis flex is all but imperceptible. The speakers are great considering their size and the battery life is good enough to last through most of, if not quite all of the day. And it looks great doing it. Matt Black, baby, that is a welcome addition to the lineup. So, okay, sounds good then, right? Let's all run out and buy Surface Laptop 2s. They didn't change much, but if they broke, don't fix it. Yeah, well, actually, there was one thing that was broke. The one thing that nearly everyone that reviewed the Surface Laptop complained about was the craptastic I.O. And I mean, I get it. It's thin, it's light. So having a whack ton of ports on it isn't the easiest thing to do. But this isn't acceptable in 2018. Yeah, Microsoft, you do get a couple of points for the Type A port. It's nice to be able to use a two-factor authentication key or a mouse without immediately reaching for a dog goal. But then you immediately take all those points, crumble them up in a ball, light them on fire and throw them off of a cliff because why did you include a mini DisplayPort port? Who even cares about this? It has its purposes, but if you've got to use a dongle anyway, where's the USB Type-C port? I mean, sure, you got your magnetic Surface Connect docking port over here, which lets you add a bunch more connectors and stuff. But you know, Microsoft, you know what other port lets people dock their laptop and charge it at the same time? Thunderbolt 3. You've created a thin and light here that has the potential to be basically perfect. And the high price that you command for it would be so much easier to swallow if there were at least a single Thunderbolt 3 port on the side. Then I could attach it to an inexpensive dongle for as many ports as I want. I could attach it to an eGPU, turning this thing into a legitimately decent gaming machine. I could use a super fast external SSD. As it is now though, the Surface Laptop 2 pretty much just makes my job harder. With Thunderbolt, if someone asked me, hey Linus, I want a thin and light laptop. What should I get? My answer would be simple. If you're cheap, get a gram. If you have a bit of extra cash and you like to look fancy, get a Surface Laptop. Without it though, well, the Dell XPS 13 and the Razer Blade Stealth come back into consideration. So at the end of the day, Alex is gonna keep using the Surface Laptop because the screen and the keyboard are second to none. Also, I think secretly he has kind of a Microsoft heart on. But once again, we can only give it a tepid recommendation rather than like an all out enthusiastic, like just start throwing your wallets at it immediately one. Ting is the mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and customer satisfaction first. If you ever do have an issue and you call them, you don't speak to a robot, you get put through directly to a person and it doesn't cost extra. In fact, with Ting, you pay only for what you use with the average Ting bill coming in at just 23 bucks a month per device. If you're stuck in a contract and switch to Ting, they'll cover 25% of your cancellation fee up to $75. And they've got lower mobile data rates than ever with data just $10 per gig beyond the second gig. To find out how much you'd save on Ting, head to linus2018.ting.com and try out their savings calculator. You just enter your last couple of bills and find out how much you'd save on Ting. Then when you decide to sign up, use our link again, that's linus2018.ting.com and you'll get 25 bucks in service credit or towards a new device. So thanks for watching guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also down there is our merch store, which has cool shirts kind of like this one, but not quite and our community forum, which you should totally join. 10 points if you can find the spots where I screwed up based on the sand in the hourglass. Where were the cuts in this video?