Microsoft Surface Book review: great hardware and performance, good display, keyboard, trackpad, but software glitches and high price make it hard to recommend
Context & Ripple Effects
AnandTech's verdict lands three weeks after Ars Technica reached nearly the same place in its October Surface Book review — hardware that really can replace a laptop, at a price that makes the replacement hard to justify. The split verdict matters because it sets up the pattern every subsequent generation would be judged against.
The through-line in this coverage is consistency: the Surface Book i7 follow-up, the Surface Book 2, and even the 2025 Surface Laptop 13 are all praised for keyboards, trackpads, and displays while getting dinged on price or software — glitches in 2015, a too-small power supply and no Thunderbolt 3 in 2017, Snapdragon app-compatibility gaps in 2025.
First-order effects
- Buyers shopping the premium detachable category get a clear signal from two major outlets in one month: the Surface Book's hardware is best-in-class, but the software polish and the price mean waiting or choosing differently.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft's next revisions respond directly to the recurring critiques — the i7 model chases battery life, the Surface Book 2 chases raw power, yet both stay expensive, confirming that reviewers treat price as the line's structural weakness rather than a launch-window quirk.
Third-order effects
- If the decade-long pattern holds, Surface hardware earns its keep as a design and build benchmark while software friction — driver-level in 2015, Thunderbolt omission in 2017, ARM app compatibility by 2025 — becomes the predictable reason the line stays a niche recommendation rather than a default buy.
The trend: Microsoft's Surface line has spent ten years perfecting hardware while software and pricing friction recur with every generation, keeping it a critic's favorite and a buyer's maybe.