Despite the decrease in hours of battery life compared with the Surface Book 2,
16 hours is very good, and suggests that you should be able to use the Surface
Book 3 with the keyboard base for an entire day of light work without needing
to plug it in.
I also ran a second battery test on the display portion alone, detached from the
keyboard base. It lasted just 4 hours and 17 minutes, which suggests that you’ll
need to keep the charging cable close at hand whenever you operate in detached
PRGHIRUYHU\ORQJ/HVVWKDQ¿YHKRXUVLVSRRUEDWWHU\OLIHLQWKHWDEOHWZRUOG
but then again, there’s virtually no other standalone tablet that must satisfy the
power-hungry, high-resolution (near-4K) 15-inch display of the Surface Book 3.
AN AMBITIOUS, CATEGORY-DEFYING DEVICE
The Surface Book 3 is an ambitious device that seeks to combine the best
qualities of all three current laptop genres into a do-it-all machine. Digital
DUWLVWVDQGRQWKHJRSURIHVVLRQDOVZKRQHHGWKHÀH[LELOLW\RIDGHWDFKDEOH
WDEOHWDQGVRPHVLJQL¿FDQWJUDSKLFVKRUVHSRZHUZLOOSUREDEO\DSSUHFLDWHLW
most. But anyone with deep enough pockets could delight in the unique
capabilities of this category-defying device. There’s nothing else like the Surface
Book 3, from Microsoft or any other mainstream laptop maker. It has a credible
claim to being the ultimate Windows device.
If you’re on a more reasonable budget, though, the Surface Book 3 isn’t for you.
6HYHUDORWKHUPHPEHUVRIWKH6XUIDFHIDPLO\LQFOXGLQJWKH(GLWRUV¶&KRLFH
6XUIDFH3URDQGWKH6XUIDFH/DSWRSR̆HUVRPHRILWVFDSDELOLWLHVIRUDORW
OHVVPRQH\$QGLI\RXSULRULWL]H&38SRZHUDERYHSK\VLFDOÀH[LELOLW\EHWWHU
performing large laptops for similar money do exist, including the 16-inch
MacBook Pro and a whole host of workstation-class Windows laptops.
For these reasons, the Surface Book 3’s most probable destiny is to follow in the
footsteps of its predecessors: an inspiration for what Windows mobile PCs can
do when their designers are given a sky’s-the-limit mandate. It’s an undeniably
brilliant piece of technology, but it’s more work of art than workhorse.
TOM BRANT
PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION (^) I SUBSCRIBE (^) I JULY 2020