Microsoft wowed us when it introduced the original Surface Book and showcased its ability to produce innovative products that create entirely new PC categories. Watching the display tear off to become a usable tablet with active pen support felt like gazing into a time machine set firmly to the...

Excellent design and build quality; Awesome display; Incredible battery life; Decent entry-level gaming performance; Great keyboard and touchpad

Coil whine is excessive and obtrusive; Expensive compared to traditional convertibles; No Thunderbolt 3 support

Given that, unless you're an Apple loyalist or simply need macOS software for work, it's hard to argue against a touch-enabled, gaming-ready system with fantastic battery life that can also become a tablet at the press of a button.

Premium alloy construction; Elegant convertible design; Sharp high-resolution touch display in new larger size; Discrete Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics; Very long battery life; Multiple configuration options; Xbox wireless controller receiver is integrated

16GB RAM maximum; Surface Pen is an additional purchase; Adding SSD storage is pricey; Some finicky issues required troubleshooting in our tests

I always wanted Microsoft to build a laptop, and it finally went ahead and built one without any tricks earlier this year. The Surface Laptop has no gimmicks, no kickstand, and no detachable screen. It's simply the best laptop you can buy right now.

Great keyboard and trackpad; Powerful machine with Nvidia graphics; Xbox Wireless support

Display still wobbles when you touch it; Battery can drain under heavy GPU load; No Thunderbolt 3 support

This is a really fun and powerful laptop to use. This is my first SSD laptop so I'm really pleased with the boot time and wake=up. The face recognition seems to work well. I don't have or use the pen but I am using a Microsoft Bluetooth mouse which was very simple to install.

As a showcase of Microsoft's technological prowess, the Surface Book 2 is an unqualified marvel. The screen is near-flawless, and is a dream for artists, editors and cinephiles alike.

Excellent performance; Superb screen; Great keyboard

Expensive; Surprisingly bulky; Poor battery life

With prices starting at £1,500, this isn't a casual purchase – but with its detachable screen, this could be the best Windows 10 power-user laptop going

excellent keyboard; great trackpad; brilliant screen; great stylus; 9-hour battery; fancy hinge; great 2-in-1 compromise; USB A; full-sized SD and USB-C; Windows Hello; Surface Dial support; 8th generation Core i7 chips; discrete GPU

Windows still has tablet app gap; very expensive; relatively heavy; still a bit of play in the hinge; no Thunderbolt 3

The Microsoft Surface Book 2, just like the generation, is a laptop possessed of a unique set of capabilities. It's fast and powerful enough to game on, you can comfortably run any application you care to think of on it and the display is good enough for professional-level photo editing,...

Incredibly versatile and powerful; Good battery life considering the power; Compact and portable

Pricey; Base model isn't worth considering

Reviewing the Microsoft Surface Book 2 is like putting on a pair of comfortable old slippers – that aaahhh feeling of familiarity and comfort as you slip into them. Ray Shaw [email protected] has a passion for IT ever since building his first computer in 1980.

It is unique; for what it is it is nealy perfect

Wish it had Thunderbolt 3

I got the surface book 2 in February, the computer is amazing. From gaming to photo editing. Its a tablet when it needs to be, such as entertainment on a long flight. Its a laptop when working. JB online also made it very easy, thanks again

Microsoft promises a lot with the new Surface Book 2. The 13.5-inch convertible is a really good device in some respects, but we are sometimes wondering why the manufacturer ignores known issues or waives modern standards. Let us begin with the good things.

high-quality case; very good screen without PWM; high performance; despite passive cooling; very long battery runtime; comfortable input devices; decent camera; often silent

very loud GPU fan (depending on the power setting; power adapter not always sufficient; no Thunderbolt 3; Surface Pen not included anymore; considerable throttling (especially CPU) on battery; display bounces during touch inputs; no LTE connectivity; basically impossible to maintain; long charging...