 The original Surface Book from Microsoft was pretty awesome, but arguably a little thick and a little underpowered. So, we were thrilled when we found out that the Surface Book 2 would pair its quad-core processor with a beefy GTX 1060 graphics card. But, how could it do that given its detachable design? And is some extra power worth the price and some of its questionable design choices? Well, you'll know the answer very soon, after I thank GlassWire for sponsoring this video. GlassWire is a firewall that displays your PC's incoming and outgoing network connections in real time. Use offer code LINUS to get 25% off at the link below. The build quality of the Surface Book 2 meets expectations. Which is to say that, like the rest of its family, it is spectacular. The magnesium body has this soft texture to it, and no matter where you touch it, it feels solid and well crafted. It's even got a decent helping of I.O. with, finally, a Type-C port. This is a first for a Surface product. But, it's also not all good. While you can use it to charge the device if you forget your magnetic charger, and if you have a powerful enough wall wart, it's regular USB 3, not Thunderbolt 3, which means no external graphics or premium docks. Unless Microsoft were to start selling an upgraded keyboard bottom with, like, a better GPU inside it. And, the Surface Book 2 is pretty heavy and unwieldy by 2018 standards. As a Windows tablet, it's big and it's pretty, but it sacrifices nearly all of its I.O. And, as a laptop, it's not very lappable, because so much of the weight is up top in the tablet portion. Overall, we feel like this detachable approach offers questionable utility compared to folding devices, like Dell's upcoming XPS 15 2-in-1. And, the hinge also adds considerable thickness, something that Porsche Design was able to overcome. However, you might be able to forgive the extra bulk because of its raw power. Rocking an Intel Core i7-8650U, 16 gigs of RAM, and a GTX 1050 in the 13-inch model, or GTX 1060 in the 15-inch, the Surface Book 2 is gonna be great for productivity, but also even for proper photo or even video editing. Plus, real AAA games at full details. That is, assuming everything stays nice and cool. Which is mostly the case. So, after an hour of stress testing, both laptop CPUs were nice and cool, unless the battery was charging at the same time. And, it should be noted they sacrificed some performance in any case, leveling off under their 1.9 GHz base clock. So, this will affect the export time of a video project, for example. But, it makes sense, since a large consideration was the touch temperature of the device, and I still prefer this proactive approach to Apple's, where they just let the processor run as fast as it can, and thermal throttle. A quick side note here, our review ended up delayed, because our first unit was part of a small batch with terrible thermals. This isn't normal, so if your results are different from what we're showing, contact Microsoft and get it sorted out. Moving on, the Surface Book 2 15 inches, as we mentioned before, surprisingly well-equipped compared to other notebooks that aren't explicitly designed for gaming. So, if you want to run older titles, you can do it at native res, or if you drop down to 1080p, it can handle just about anything, with the 13.5 inch model also performing respectively. With all of that said, if you're just gaming, you could get the same power in an Acer Helios 300 for a third of the price. You get a Surface Book 2 for the productivity. That is where it excels. Pardon the pun. The Surface Book 2 absolutely nails the keyboard feel, compared to any other laptop we've tried. It's as good or better, with a nice travel distance, soft, yet tactile keystrokes, and a nice, soft, comfortable surface coating. Since people will ask, yes, it's a lot better than the MacBook Pro. Well, at least as far as the keyboard is concerned. The touchpad is a different story. Apple's large, gesture-friendly touch surface still stands above anything available in the PC space. Though, that's not to say that the one here is bad. And I guess if you're really focused on comparing size, the 15-inch display offers plenty of real estate to get your touch on. As you'd expect, the Surface Book 2 is right up there with the best touch experiences on the market. So, if you'll be using the stylus for notes or drawing, you can't really do better while maintaining a full-fat x86 operating system, and the screen isn't just good for touching. It's also fantastic to look at, with Microsoft's individual factory calibration, making sure that every color hits your eyeballs just right. Furthermore, as we've said about every Surface product, the 3x2 aspect ratio, coupled with the higher resolution, is noticeably better for productivity than 16x9 1080p. And you'll be able to be productive for a really long time, thanks to the Book 2's over 9.5-hour score in our work battery test. This is among the best results that we've seen to date. Its webcam is better than other laptops, which is to say that it's still probably not as good as cameras should be in 2018, but progress is progress. But it makes up for some of that with Windows Hello facial recognition and some pretty good speakers given its size. So overall, good. Maybe even great. But as always, there's a catch. It got a 1 out of 10 for repairability from iFixit, so you've got to shell out up front for the specs you think you'll need, even storage, and our top-of-the-line model here will run you a cool $3,300 US dollars. Ouch! Now, if you compare that to another premium product like the MacBook Pro, well, I'd say as long as you can live without macOS, the Surface Book 2 comes away the clear winner thanks to its superior versatility. But if you don't need one device that does everything, the price is a little tough to swallow. I mean, yes, technically, it starts at $1,500, but that one has no dedicated graphics card and only two CPU cores, making a Surface Pro or a Surface laptop easier on both your wallet and your back. Speaking of making things easier, why not switch to Ting? Ting is the mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and customer satisfaction first. So when you call Ting, you do not speak to a robot, you get put through directly to a person, and you don't pay extra for the privilege. You pay only for the data and the airtime that you use, with the average Ting bill coming in at just $23 a month per device. And if you're stuck in a contract and switch to Ting, they'll even cover 25% of your cancellation fee up to $75. They've got lower mobile data rates than ever, it's now just $10 a gig beyond the first gig, and every single Ting customer will be able to reap the benefits of this new change. So head over to linus.ting.com and try out their savings calculator to see if you'll save. And then when you sign up at our link, make sure that you get the $25 in service credit or towards a new device that you get. That's linus.ting.com.