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 Surface Book 2 is an excellent laptop than tries to do a bit too much for its own good. While it excels in a number of areas, it's forced to make a couple of disappointing compromises that stop it from achieving its full potential.

Excellent performance; Superb screen; Great keyboard

Expensive; Surprisingly bulky; Poor battery life

It is hard to improve on perfection. Microsoft's Book design is unique, and given that others have not copied it will probably remain so.

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

Wish it had Thunderbolt 3

Microsoft Surface Book 2 review: The Microsoft Surface Book is ideal for those who are creative and want power in the laptop to do whatever they want to do.

As an update to the original, the Surface Book 2 makes some neat nips and tucks - mainly under the skin, with improved power and performance - that add up to make this Microsoft a seriously powerful contender for Apple's MacBook Pro.

Great muscle-wire release system to separate laptop and screen into two parts for versatile use; Oodles on power on tap; Solid design

It's rather heavy; Big price tag; Combined battery life is less than quoted; A little top-heavy and upright; Screen lacks ultra-wide colour gamut

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...

There's a lot going on with the new Surface Book 2. It's not just a laptop, it's a laptop with the latest 8th-gen Intel Core-series CPUs . You can detach the screen and cart it around as a standalone tablet, or connect it to the keyboard base for extra battery life and graphics power.

The new Surface Book 2 adds a long list of worthy upgrades, from new CPUs and gamer-ready graphics cards to a bigger 15-inch version; Battery life and performance are both excellent

The two-in-one design still feels awkward at times, and for some users, the detachable screen may be superfluous; The most interesting new components are only available in very expensive configurations

Microsoft just announced a few brand new products: a pair of powerful new Surface Book 2 devices featuring and graphics, and a Surface Precision Mouse designed to be the perfect companion to the devices.

If someone told us back in 1992, when Windows 3.1 was first released, that Microsoft would become known for its hardware, we would have done a double-take. Yet, with more cash flow than it knows what to do with, the Redmond-based mega-corporation has arguably introduced an entirely new category of...

Crazy long battery life; Massively powerful; Lightweight yet large tablet; Excellent cooling

No up-firing base speakers; Small trackpad; Very pricey; No Surface Pen included

Gorgeous design, everything feels really nice, keyboard is great and touch pad is silky smooth. As a uni student, this laptop has been doing everything I need it to do so far, which involves writing essays, viewing lectures, writing notes and your general googling/youtubing/etc.