What's the difference between Surface Book and Surface Laptop series? Which one is better? And what should I buy? If you are confused these questions, you can read this post, in which MiniTool explains Surface Book vs Surface Laptop.
About Microsoft Surface
Microsoft Surface is a series of personal computing devices designed and manufactured by Microsoft, including tablets, laptops, all-in-ones, mobile phones, and headphones. This series features the following six main lines of devices:
- Surface Pro: a professional hybrid tablet with optional removable keyboard accessories and optional stylus pen.
- Surface Book: a notebook with a detachable tablet screen.
- Surface Laptop: a notebook with a 13.5-inch touchscreen.
- Surface Go: a small size tablet.
- Surface Studio: a 28-inch all-in-one desktop with a stylus.
- Surface Hub: a touch-screen whiteboard.
Among these products, many people want to know about Surface Book vs Surface Laptop. If you also want to know their differences, please read the following content.
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Introduction to Surface Book and Surface Laptop
Surface Laptop series has a high-quality power supply, excellent portability, and a refined appearance. Its thickness of 14.47mm and weight of 1.25kg make it an excellent portable laptop. The design of a rich color combination of the same color system, and the elegant Alcantara keyboard makes it shine.
The 7th generation Intel Core processor makes it excellent for multitasking, and the 13.5-inch PixelSense display presents you with realistic colors. In addition to supporting Surface Pen, Screen Touch, Surface Dial, and Windows Ink, Surface Laptop also uses innovative Microsoft technologies, including Windows Hello, Microsoft Office, and Cortana.
Surface Book series is equipped with the 6th generation Intel Core i5, i7 processor, a high memory configuration, and an optional discrete graphics card, which will bring you a smooth laptop experience.
This series provides up to 12 hours of battery life, and can run a variety of professional-level software you need. Besides, the writing experience of the Surface Pen is also very smooth, just like writing on paper with a ballpoint pen.
Whether you like to edit photos, paint by hand, or have demanding tasks in design, sketching, and manufacturing, Surface Book will help you break through the limitations.
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The following table shows Surface Book vs Surface Laptop in terms of specs and price:
| Microsoft Surface Laptop | Microsoft Surface Book | |
| Price Range | $999 to $2,199 | $1,499 to $3,299 |
| Weight & Thickness | 2.8 pounds, 0.6 inches thick | 3.3 pounds, 0.9 inches thick |
| Colors | Platinum, burgundy, cobalt blue, graphite gold | Silver |
| Materials | Aluminum, Alcantara keyboard deck | Magnesium |
| Display | 13.5 inches, 2256 x 1504 | 13.5 inches, 3000 x 2000 |
| Ports | USB 3.0, mini DisplayPort, headphone jack | Two USB 3.0 ports, full-size SD card reader, mini DisplayPort, headphone jack |
| CPU | 7th Gen Core i5, Core i7 | 6th Gen Intel Core i5, Core i7 |
| RAM | 4GB, 8GB, 16GB | 8GB, 16GB |
| SSD | 128GB, 256GB, 512GB | 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB |
| Graphics | Intel HD 620, Iris Plus 640 | Intel HD 520, Nvidia GeForce GPU (1GB), Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M (2GB) |
| Special Features | Works with Surface Pen and Surface Dial | Works with Surface Pen (included) and Surface Dial. Detachable display |
Which One Is Better?
From the above table, we can see that Surface Book is better than Surface Laptop in various aspects like display resolution, ports, etc., except for the CPU aspect. As a result, Surface Book is more expensive than Surface Laptop.
Which one should you choose? It depends on the type of work you do, your budget and how portable you want your notebook to be. If you are students, young professionals, or anyone who is mostly browsing the web, working on word processors or spreadsheets, and listening to music, Surface Laptop is more suitable for you.
As for the Surface Book, it is more suitable for creators, because of its optional discrete GPU, the stylus in the box for drawing and the power to run software such as Photoshop.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Linda has been working as an editor at MiniTool for 5 years. She is always curious about computer knowledge and learns it crazily. Her articles are simple and easy to understand. Even people who do not understand computer can gain something. By the way, her special focuses are disk management, data recovery and PDF editing.