Editorials

9 Best Surface Book Alternatives in 2018

Published

6 years ago

01/30/2018

Microsoft Surface Laptop - $999.99

The Microsoft Surface Laptop takes a simple approach to computing. The $999.99 notebook doesn’t transform into a tablet, but it does have pen and touch input.

Read: Surface Laptop vs 2017 Surface Pro: Which to Buy?

The Surface Laptop has the features Surfaces are known for. A Windows Hello camera lets you sign in without a password. Its 13.5-inch display has touch, and you can write on it with the Surface Pen. This screen isn’t as detailed as the Surface Book’s display. It has an aluminum frame that comes in silver, teal, burgundy or gold. Alcantara fabric covers the keyboard deck where your wrists rest while you type.

Configurations start with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. You replace these with an Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage if you need that. Surface Laptop can last through 14 hours of video playback instead of the 12 hours the least expensive Surface Book can manage.

You do lose a lot of features. Be sure that you’re comfortable writing on a screen that doesn’t lay flat before you buy the Surface Laptop because you can't collapse its screen. Second, the cheapest Surface Laptop only offers 4GB of RAM and not the 8GB of RAM the Surface Book comes with.

Finally, the Surface Laptop only has only one USB 3.0 port and lacks a memory card slot.

Read: 5 Best Surface Laptop Alternatives in 2017

Eventually, Surface Laptops will cost users more money than they do today. Microsoft is upgrading Surface Laptop buyers to Windows 10 Pro free until 2018. After that, buyers must pay $50 to download programs, like the Chrome Web Browser, from the internet. Also, buyers need a $99.99 Surface Pen to take full advantage of the Surface Laptop’s 4,096 different levels of pressure sensitivity for writing and drawing.

Buy the Microsoft Surface Laptop from Microsoft.com for $999.99