The Surface Laptop 2 Is ALMOST Great...#Helpful Post

hey guys the Austin the Microsoft

service line has been growing a lot

lately with everything from a desktop

all-in-one with the surface studio all

the way down to the cheap and tiny

surface go there's a lot to like one of

my favorite devices has always been the

service laptops so Microsoft sent over

their brand new service laptop to to

take a look at I got very excited until

I took a little bit of a closer look the

overall hardware hasn't changed too much

this year which is certainly not a bad

thing it's all made out of aluminum it

does sort of give a little bit of a

Macbook vibe at least until you open up

the lid the keyboard and decklid are

lined in Alcantara now this is pretty

unique in the PC space as opposed to

seeing aluminum here it is much more of

a fabric material and it kind of gives

you a little bit of a unique look it's

typically found in things like high-end

BMWs and Porsches and Audi's but how do

you here our laptop is nice now sure it

will wear and get a little bit dirty

over time but as far as I'm concerned

that's totally worth the trade-off of a

nice soft typing experience you're also

getting a terrific display so just like

last year is a little bit of a weird

panel with a 13.5 inch size and a 20 256

by 1504 yes I got the resolution right

it's really unusual but one of the nice

things they have here is that it not

only is a touchscreen of course like a

surface should be but importantly the

screen doesn't really wobble when you

touch it I mean it was a little bit it's

much better than most other ultra books

out there the actual panel itself is

high-quality but what I really

appreciate is the aspect ratio unlike

most laptops which are sixteen by nine

this is three by two which means that

you get a lot more vertical screen real

estate which is helpful for things like

web browsing and you know productivity

everyone loves productivity in their

really expensive laptop right something

else you can do of course though is

watch video even though you do get a

little bit of a letterbox you have a

super crispy video like Jake's new can

you survive the movies over on vsauce3

you'll find that there's a lot of

crispness to watch that aspect ratio

also pays off for the keyboard and

trackpad so specifically the keyboard is

terrific it's backlit it's got a really

nice sort of feel and on top of that the

trackpad is actually fairly large most

of that is because the screen is taller

which means there's just a little bit

more space here one of the big new

features this year is not a feature at

all it's the brand-new matte black color

can I just stop for a second

and say that yes I love a good silver

laptop it's classic it's great but this

not black I mean I can feel márquez's

heart just fluttering it's so so cool I

mean I didn't expect out of all people

Microsoft to make a murdered-out surface

book it is so so cool or surface laptop

leather it's all you know what is it new

this year the port's which if you take a

look

consists of a single USB a a single mini

DisplayPort a headphone jack

and the magnetic service connector you

know we don't see a USB C or oh I don't

know a Thunderbolt 3 ports

can you feel my frustration I kind of

get it last year the surface laptop -

did or the surface laptop one didn't

have a thunderbolt port or at least

didn't have a USB see but I mean you see

that this is this is a $400 surface go

guess what that port is do you see it

little round not round to the the little

circular shape of that oblong thank you

you see a little oblong port that's USB

see it supports power it supports data I

know look it supports full DisplayPort

just like this useless mini DisplayPort

here

so even the USB port apparently is USB 3

and that USB 3.1 I'll give them a little

bit of credit because there is the

service connector which can give you

some of the functionality of USB see but

I mean it's 2018 it's going to be 2019

soon this laptop is going to be around

for a while and USB see it's absolutely

the future it just it's crazy to me they

didn't just include USB see here I mean

it's on the $4 surface why can't they

put it on the $1,300 surface laptop -

one of the major upgrades for the

surface laptop to this year are in specs

so last year it was good but it only had

these seventh gen dual-core processors

this year however we have the full quad

core Core i5 and core i7 options no no

you won't be able to gain particularly

well on the surface laptop - mostly

because it doesn't have any kind of

dedicated graphics as an option and you

can't connect any external graphics but

having the quad core design does make a

big difference for things like being

able to do a little bit more video

editing and you do have all the surface

accessories including the pen as well as

the dial so this one should be a pretty

solid Photoshop machine software wise

this year it ships with Windows 10 home

out of the box which would sound totally

normal and not exciting at all until you

remember that they last year's version

of the surface laptop shipped with

Windows 10 s which thankfully has kind

of been pushed along to the wayside

you've got a very nice clean build of

Windows and of course you can install

all the actually might want there are

some nice features including windows

precision drivers for the touchpad as

well as an IR camera that does support

when is hello speaking of that camera it

is a 720p webcam it sounds pretty decent

but most importantly it actually is a

pretty high quality device unlike some

other laptops that have webcams on the

bottom of the display where this is the

angle you get all the time battery life

is solid now microsoft claims 14 and a

half hours on a charge which is

definitely a little bit ambitious but

you should easily be able to last

through

day of light use for example at work or

school something that's not going to be

taxing at all that heavily the surface

laptop - is expensive it starts at $1000

but that's only for 128 gigs of storage

if you want bump up to a 256 gig SSD

that's gonna cost you 300 more dollars

the drive is decently fast but it's

nowhere near as fast as the custom SSD

inside the MacBook Pro which is actually

a less expensive upgrade Apple charges

you $200 on the MacBook Pro whereas they

charge you $300 on the surface so you

know when you're charging more than

Apple for an upgrade you might want to

reevaluate your decisions I really want

to like the service laptop - it's got

killer hardware I love the black look I

really appreciate that it is much more

powerful now but the issue is that it

doesn't even have USB see much less

Thunderbolt 3 especially considering

this kind of price the service laptop -

is a good laptop but it is not a great

one