Visitors check out the Surface Book laptop at the Microsoft stand at the 2016 CeBIT digital technology trade fair on the fair's opening day on March 14, 2016 in Hanover, Germany. (Photo : Getty Images/Sean Gallup)
Microsoft has unveiled the Surface Book second generation and Apple is expected to reveal its chief rival, the MacBook Pro 2016, shortly. In the coming weeks, laptop buyers will have to decide between the MacOS and Windows 10 contenders as both are likely scheduled for release date this coming November.
But this early, it appears that the Surface Book 2 enjoys key advantages over the MBP 2016. Four of them are listed below:
Discrete NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M GPU
Microsoft said the new Surface Book will sell in two flavors - the more affordable Core i5 edition and the premium Core i7, which its maker said will be equipped with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 965M GPU for optimal productivity and more than decent mobile gaming experience.
The CPU platform for the Book 2 is Intel Skylake and the same is expected for the MacBook Pro 2016 that Apple will introduce October 27. Rumors also indicated that for the high-end new MacBook Pros, an AMD Polaris 11 graphics card is part of the deal but this add-on remains mere speculations.
As Microsoft has confirmed that NVIDIA is part of the Team Surface Book, the company obviously got the better of Apple on this respect.
16hrs battery life
When presented, the Surface Book 2 remains the same beautiful package that the first version was but Microsoft also made clear that the device is both beauty and a beast, thanks to the combo and Intel CPU and NVIDIA GPU.
But the monster that the Book 2 is, its maker made sure too that its beastly prowess will last for nearly a day or reportedly by up to 16 hours in a single charge. That would be around 30 percent jump from the original version.
2-in-1 design
And like its immediate predecessor, the Surface Book 2 is both a laptop when the screen is docked and a tablet when undocked. To date, there is no indication that Apple will match the same feature with the MacBook Pro 2016 revelation so for Mac fans to enjoy the same they will need to buy the iPad Pro separately.
Pricing
Microsoft said the Surface Book 2 will sell starting at $1500 for the i5 variant (no discrete GPU) and $2400 for the i7 edition (can go as high as $3300 for the 1TB storage configuration). The Book 2 pricing is no doubt in the premium territory but should be relatively cheaper when compared to the MacBook Pro 2016. In fact, for Apple fans on a budget the bet is either the 13-inch MacBook Air or any of the 12-inch MacBook models but definitely not the MBP 2016.
Microsoft has set the Surface Book 2 release date on November 10 with the preorder already underway.
