Microsoft Invests In Power, New Surface Book Packs More Muscle Than Ever

It seems Microsoft is intent on bludgeoning the competition to death with its new Surface Book 2. The highly versatile unit comes with more muscle under the hood and a bigger screen size. It’s basically a refresh of the Surface Book lineup that the company unveiled two years ago and the numerical title suggests that Microsoft has big plans for this bad boy.

The unit now comes in two choices for the screen size, Ars Technica reports. There’s the 13-inch model, which is what previous units came with, and a 15-inch model. Both units are getting revamped battery capacities and upgraded software and hardware capabilities.

The smaller unit comes with a 3000×2000 resolution while the bigger one has a 3240×2160 resolution. Microsoft claims that both units have a contrast ratio of 1600:1 and come with 10-finger multi-touch support.

With regards to the power inside the units, the 13-inch version will provide consumers with the option to choose between the Kaby Lake i5-7300U processor and the Kaby Lake-R i7-8650U processor. The hybrid tablets don’t come with fans, but Microsoft insists that the tablet is capable of dissipating the heat produced by the unit.

Both versions also offer up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. Anyone who wants to use these units as portable gaming rigs can also choose to have them equipped with a 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 GPU.

In a recent conversation with The Verge, head of the Surface division at Microsoft Panos Panay revealed that developing the more powerful, yet ultimately thinner and more elegant Surface Book 2 was not an easy journey. The ultimate intent behind the Surface hybrid laptops is to woo both new and old professionals away from the MacBook Pro environment.

Apple has not exactly performed well in this area recently, which has left a lot of its fans unhappy. That’s why Microsoft is intent on seizing the moment with its most performance-heavy Surface unit yet.