Best 2017 Surface Pro Alternatives

Surface Book 2

The Surface Book 2 is Microsoft’s own Surface Pro alternative and it offers a bigger screen and more processing power for games and apps.

Just like the 2017 Surface Pro, the Surface Book 2 can replace your tablet. Surface Book 2 models have a 13.5-inch or 15-inch touch display. Think of this display as a tablet because it fully detaches from the Surface Book 2’s keyboard base. You can use it on its own for up to 3 hours. If you have a Surface Pen, you can sketch or draw on the device like a Surface Pro.

This Surface doesn’t force you to give up ports or a graphics card like the Surface Pro does. You can add an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card to the 15-inch model at Microsoft.com. You can also go from a dual-core Intel Core i5 processor to a much more powerful quad-core Intel Core i7 processor there too. Xbox Wireless lets the 15-inch model connect directly to an Xbox Wireless Controller.

Despite their differences, all models share some basic internals. They each have a Windows Hello Camera that can log you into your PC without you typing your password. Both models have an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera on the back, but the 15-inch model is so big you will probably never use it to capture photos. Each Surface Book 2 model’s base has a USB Type-C port, 2 USB Type-A ports and a memory card reader.

Finally, each Surface Book 2 gets 17 hours of battery life, according to Microsoft. That’s if you’re watching videos you've downloaded to it.

Surface Book 2 starts at $1,199. Again, that excludes the Surface Pen, which costs $99.99 extra. Amazon has models starting at $1,329.