And the MacBook Pro is also significantly slimmer - the Book 3 is up to 23 millimeters thick, while the MacBook Pro maxes out at 16.3 millimeters. But as you'll see, I think Apple justifies its heft a bit more. But, ironically enough, Apple ended up making the MacBook Pro 16-inch a bit chunkier as well, so it now slightly outweighs the Book 3. Previously, I also knocked the 15-inch Surface Book for being heavier than its competitors at 4.2 pounds.

The Book 3, unfortunately, still has thick screen borders that make it look like a notebook from four or five years ago. But since we last saw the Surface Book, most PC makers have started seriously slimming down their bezels to fit in larger displays and reduce weight. There's the same all-metal case, the unique bulbous hinge (that leaves a slight gap open when closed), and a large 15-inch screen. It still looks and feels like a high-quality machine, though the design hasn't budged at all since the last model. I'm not saying the Surface Book 3 isn't impressive. You'll have to jump through a few more hoops to get that Quadro GPU though, as it's only available to corporate customers. You've got NVIDIA's GTX 1650, GTX 1660 Ti and Quadro RTX 3000 as options, the latter of which is much faster than the MacBook Pro 16-inch's Radeon GPUs. There's just no way the Surface Book 3 can compete in a CPU fight.īy subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy.Īt least Microsoft is competitive on the graphics front. Dell's XPS 15 can also be configured with similar chips reaching up to 5.1GHz. The MacBook Pro 16-inch, on the other hand, offers Intel's recent six and eight-core CPUs, including the monstrously powerful 5GHz Core i9.

(Those chips also appear in the Surface Laptop 3, an ultraportable that doesn’t even pretend to handle heavy lifting). The Surface Book 3 features Intel's quad-core 10th generation Ice Lake CPUs, which max out at a 3.9GHz Turbo Boost speed. But now, it's beginning to seem like a liability. It's an ingenious way to craft a detachable PC, and Microsoft's engineers deserve plenty of credit for going completely against the grain.

The keyboard base, meanwhile, holds a larger battery and dedicated graphics. Most of its components - the CPU, RAM, storage and main motherboard - lie behind the screen. That's because it's not like a normal laptop - it’s really a large tablet with a detachable keyboard.

Microsoft surface book 3 15