OCTOBER 2019 • TECH ADVISOR 81BUYING GUIDEnow.Thekeysarenicelyspacedandsitin a sunken
section,soareflushwiththepalmrest.Yougeta nice
smoothactionwhentyping and there’s a three-level
backlight. Our only complaint is that the keyboard
flexes too much towards the centre.
The trackpad is exactly what you want – a decent
size, smooth and responsive. The integrated buttons
still make a loud click, but it’s not a big deal.
Display
The Surface Laptop 2 has a 13.5in PixelSense display
with a resolution of 2,256x1,504 and 201ppi. The
aspect ratio of 3:2 is squarer than the traditional
16:9, but works well for editing word documents and
spreadsheets, if not watching video.
Having touch input (10-point) can be useful, and
Microsoft’s laptop is compatible with the Surface Pen
(£99 from fave.co/2z8vewH), with its 4,096 levels of
pressure sensitivity. It’s an optional extra though, as is
the Surface Dial (£89 from fave.co/2PDXwKl), which
can only be used off-screen here.
The display is crisp and colourful, though we would
havelikedsmallerbezels,whichwouldallowa larger
screensizewithin the same chassis.
Processor
The major change in the Surface Laptop 2, apart from
the new black model, is an upgrade in the engine
room. Microsoft has, as you would expect, fitted
an8th-generationIntelprocessorin contrasttothe
7th-generation chip used in the original Surface Laptop.
They still use the Kaby Lake architecture, but have R on