Surface Laptop 2 review: A lot of performance with a good look

A month and a half ago, Microsoft placed next to the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Studio 2 the Surface Laptop 2. This should especially score with the unique design and the relatively good performance. I was able to test the device for two weeks now.

Unboxing and initial setup

The Surface Laptop 2 comes in a white cardboard box with a picture of the product, a Microsoft logo and lots of labels. When you lift the lid, the device immediately greets you. Underneath, Microsoft has packed a charger, some instructions and various warnings. The charger has an output of 15 volts with 2,58 amps and an additional USB-A port that can be used to charge other gadgets.

The furnishingprozess was like the Surface GB, which I was able to test in August, kept very simple. You just have to agree to the terms and conditions, create a user account and add the Microsoft account if one is owned. OneDrive and Cortana can be set up optionally.

Optical cracker with Alcantara

The Surface Laptop 2 comes in several colors: black, platinum, cobalt blue, and burgundy. In China, the manufacturers of the notebook even sell a pink version, which was christened "Blush" and which in my opinion doesn't really look nice. In all configurations, the laptop weighs around 1,26 kilograms, which is really extremely light. When it came to the material, aluminum was chosen, which I got away with in an unwanted drop test from a height of one meter without a scratch.

This is the “Blush” color option, which is only available in China (Image: Microsoft)

The keyboard deck was completely covered with Alcantara in the color of the selected configuration, which feels particularly pleasant. The bottom of the Surface Laptop 2, on the other hand, is made of the aforementioned aluminum. As far as the workmanship is concerned, I can't complain. On the keyboard, however, I was a bit confused at the beginning that the power button is not on the far right in the upper corner.

The Alcantara, with which the keyboard deck was covered, feels very pleasant (picture: TechnikNews)

The speakers are located under the keyboard and, like the Surface Go, only sound average, but not terribly bad. The trackpad is a size that is very easy to work with, always reacts precisely and accurately, and interprets all my inputs correctly. I can type very comfortably and quickly on the keys of the keyboard, which have the same color as the device. There is no numeric keypad.

Microsoft saved on the connections (Image: TechnikNews)

Microsoft saved quite a bit on the connections. On the left there is a USB-A port, a mini display port and a jack plug. On the right side, only the Surface Connector for charging and connecting the Surface Dock was installed. I would have been happy if the Redmont company had swapped the mini display port for a type C USB connector, as this is a lot more versatile.

Improved Windows Hello over the good touchscreen

Above the display, which I will come to in a moment, there is a 720p webcam and the sensors for the iris recognition, which are used for unlocking with Windows Hello. This works even faster than a few months ago with the Surface Go, and this time even with glasses. The webcam, on the other hand, is hardly better than in the Surface model mentioned above.

The display of the Surface Laptop 2 could definitely convince me (picture: TechnikNews)

The PixelSense touchscreen is 13,5 inches, has an aspect ratio of 3: 2 and has a resolution of 2256 × 1504 pixels at 201 PPI. The Surface Pen, which Microsoft sells separately, is also supported again. Perhaps I should note that the part with the display on the Surface Laptop 2 cannot be removed.

Enough power for simple and complex tasks

Inside my configuration of the Surface Laptop 2, the Intel Core i5-8250U (eighth generation) works with eight gigabytes of RAM and an SSD storage that is 256 gigabytes in size. In the best variant there is an Intel Core i7, 16 gigabytes of RAM and a terabyte of memory, including an SSD.

The advantage of the i5 version is that it works without a fan. And yet in the well-known Geekbench benchmark, 4.203 points in the single-core score and 13.233 points in the multi-core score are achieved. Thus, the performance for simple and everyday tasks is excellent.

These are the Geekbench results of the Surface Laptop 2 (Image: Windows Central)

There are practically no waiting times when switching on the laptop and navigation through the operating system, which I will say a few words about in a moment, is as smooth as butter. Programming in NetBeans or VS Code also works without any problems. The same applies to image editing with GIMP. The only thing that could bring the notebook to its knees is editing videos. I was not able to test that in detail, however.probeer

The battery is supposed to keep the Surface Laptop 2 running for 14,5 hours. I can confirm that. Unfortunately, it always took around 2,5 hours until the device had 100 percent battery charge again.

No more Windows 10 S.

The first Surface Laptop was delivered from the factory with Windows 10 in S mode. This meant that apps could only be installed from the Windows Store. However, a free update to Windows 10 Home was available until the end of 2017. This is no longer necessary, as the Surface Laptop 2 now comes with Windows 10 Home version 1803 as standard. Windows 10 Pro is available as a paid upgrade.

Except for the fact that Windows 10 wasn't really designed for touchscreens, I didn't have much trouble with the software. I often noticed this in Chrome. If you navigate through the browser with your finger for a long time during a session, the cursor is no longer displayed when you want to work with the trackpad again. Here I was able to experience that the only thing that helps is logging on to Windows again.

Even when scrolling through, for example, the iA Writer I noticed that Windows 10 wasn't actually made for touchscreens. So every time only text passages were marked when I actually wanted to navigate through my finished articles. Annoying.

Conclusion

The Surface Laptop 2 is a good laptop for a lot of people, no question about it. If you spend most of your time surfing the web or writing emails, you should consider getting the Surface Go, which is much cheaper and perfect for these things. I would only get the Surface Laptop 2 if you want to do more complex things, such as writing and compiling programs. Despite some disadvantages, this device is perfect for that in my opinion. For video editing or similar things, however, I would choose the Surface Book 2, as it has an additional graphics card.

Prices and availability

The Surface Laptop 2 is available in the above configurations and colors from Microsoft and various retailers, including MediaMarkt. For the cheapest configuration you have to pick up 1450 euros (RRP). The best version of the new notebook costs 2850 euros (RRP).