when we reviewed the surface laptop a year ago we ended up giving it a pretty
tepid sorta recommendation but since then alex who writes most of our laptop
reviews started using it as his daily driver
and then just never stopped so what is it that gives the surface
laptop that kind of staying power why is
it that alex who can use any laptop he wants would keep coming back to it and
why does alex put double spaces after periods in his writing memory express is
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when your job description is literally writer a good keyboard is crucial and i
think it's fair to say that the surface laptop has one of the best if not the
best keyboard on the market there's something about the way the keys go down
that just feels great it's crazy how much tactile feedback they've been able
to get into such a compact device and the alcantara wrist rest makes typing
just that a little bit more comfortable now we actually expressed concerns about
its long-term durability but i'm actually very pleased to say that
this unit thank you which has been subjected to some pretty harsh
conditions over the last year hasn't yet shown any signs of wear
below the keyboard though is the first missed opportunity of the surface laptop
2. the touchpad is frosted glass topped
it's responsive it's accurate overall it's great
but even as only a very occasional macbook pro user it is
really hard to go back to a small touchpad and i'd like to see it expanded
next time around one thing that did get fixed this time
though is performance now for our purposes the 7th gen dual
core processor from last time hasn't been a huge issue i mean we all have
desktops whenever we need more horsepower but if this was your only
computer or even if you wanted to do some light photo editing on the road
you'd probably be frustrated that similarly thin devices have been
available for months with quad quad-core processors
not anymore microsoft bumped the surface laptop 2 to a quad-core 8th gen
processor and while they were at it they also canned the entry-level 4 gig model
to prevent anyone buying such an otherwise premium device from having a
pretty bad time running Windows 10. the entry level unit is now a totally
different machine from last year's and it makes it much easier for us to
recommend it with confidence while we're talking about great things
that are great the screen is great for things like surfing the web and writing
in word the three by two aspect ratio lets you see that much more of your work
and when you combine that with excellent accurate color deep blacks and the top
of the line touch capabilities that we've come to expect from microsoft service lineup
well it's really hard to come up with complaints for the screen
that is unless your favorite online content creator
just made the switch to an 18 by nine aspect ratio for their videos leaving
you with even more massive black bars than you otherwise would have had
above the screen in what is obviously the correct place you'll find the webcam
which again is about as good as they come and implements Windows hello facial
recognition perfectly by the timeline has blade stealth even open i'm already
signed in and even though we've had other Windows hello ira laptops here
they have the camera below them and stuff so it normally takes longer to
register the face with that said we still maintain that being the best
webcam on a laptop is kind of like
beating all the kids at the local elementary school at foursquare like
there's still a lot of room for the entire industry to do better in this
category though i'm not sure i can say the same about the build quality
microsoft puts a lot of work into the design of its devices and it shows
chassis flex is all but imperceptible the speakers are great considering their
size and the battery life is good enough to last through most of if not quite all
of the day and it looks great doing it matte black baby
that is a welcome addition to the lineup so okay sounds good then right let's all
run out and buy surface laptop twos they didn't change much but if they broke
don't fix it yeah well actually there that well there was
one thing that was broke the one thing that nearly everyone that
reviewed the surface laptop complained about was the craptastic io
and i mean i get it it's thin
it's light so having a whack ton of ports on it isn't the easiest thing to
do but but this isn't acceptable in 2018.
yeah microsoft you do get a couple of points for the type a port it's nice to
be able to use a a two-factor authentication key or a mouse without
immediately reaching for a dog goal but then you immediately take all those
points crumple them up in a ball turn light them on fire and throw them off of
a cliff because why did you include a mini displaypor
port who even cares about this
it has its purposes but if you've got to use a dongle anyway where's the usb
type-c port i mean sure you got your magnetic surface connect docking port
over here which lets you add a bunch more connectors and stuff but
you know microsoft you know what other port lets people dock their laptop and
charge it at the same time Thunderbolt 3.
you've created a thin and light here that has the potential
to be basically perfect and the high price that you command for
it would be so much easier to swallow if there were at least a single Thunderbolt
3 port on the side then i could attach it to an inexpensive dongle for as many
ports as i want i could attach it to an egpu turning this thing into a
legitimately decent gaming machine i could use a super fast external SSD
as it is now though the surface laptop 2
pretty much just makes my job harder with Thunderbolt if someone asked me
hey Linus i want a thin and light laptop
what should i get my answer would be simple if you're cheap get a gram if you
have a bit of extra cash and you like to look fancy get a surface laptop
without it though well the dell xps 13
and the razer blade stealth come back into consideration so at the end of the
day alex is going to keep using the surface laptop because the screen and the
keyboard are second to none also i think secretly has kind of a
microsoft hard on but once again we can
only give it a tepid recommendation rather than like an all out enthusiastic
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10 points if you can find the spots where i screwed up
based on the sand in the hourglass
where were the cuts in this video