First Impressions: Microsoft Surface Book 2 Convertible Review

[Redaktion]

Powerhouse performance? Microsoft says the new Surface Book 2 combines the best of two worlds and is also the most powerful Surface device yet. The specs look promising thanks to the new Kaby Lake-R processor and Nvidia's Pascal GPU. We already have a test model of the convertible and share our initial impressions.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/First-Impressions-Microsoft-Surface-Book-2-Convertible-Review.263954.0.html

[Amin]

Thanks for this! Looking forward to your review on the 13.5"!

I am also very much looking forward to your first impressions/review of the 15". Any word on when this will go live? Thanks again for always making such great reviews :)

[Ethan]

Fantastic start! I look forward to the rest!

I humbly request, however, that you address the supposed issue with the power supply not providing enough power while gaming.  It seems to be an issue according to some and would like your expert review on the situation

[AriGold]

Please try undervolting the cpu?

[Andreas Osthoff]

Hi, there was a mistake in the article. The tablet is cooled passively, and the corresponding sections have been edited.

Yes, we will check the power consumption and whether the PSU is sufficient during gaming.

[t-rone]

I wonder why is max brightness lower here then on SB1, perhaps because of ambient light?

Also is coil-whine evident only while being plugged in or also when on battery - my xps 9360 has this issue?

[Perry]

Do you know what's time you will do the review for the 15" model? 

Thanks

[Eric P]

I'll let you know, the delta on the 15" SB2 between "better" and "max" performance on the slider is much more significant.  Maybe the 1050 sips less power, but when you drop the 1060 down to 30 watts, the FPS drops considerably across most titles, at least at higher resolutions.  For example, Battlefield 1 will go from 60FPS to 30FPS and back and forth if you use the "better performance" mode on the power slider (running at 1620x1080 and high settings).  If you keep it at max, you get locked 60+ FPS - but also the 49 dBa fans (I have a meter).

I've found that some lower end titles work fine using the better performance slider, where FPS isn't as important, but it's still annoying to see drops in performance by more than 50% for periods of time.  This oscillation is fine when you play a game of Civilization 6, but in competitive online shooters, it simply won't do.  I guess it's fine, since max performance seems solid (if loud).

[Sitanoni]

Yeah, I'd LOVE to see the 15 inch GTX 1060 version reviewed, even though lots of the things will probably be almost identical.

[Dzani]

So the newer version has a smaller battery, consumes more power on average at idle and under load but still has longer battery runtimes than the older SBPB?

How is this even possible?