Surface Pro 6 vs. Surface Book 2: What's the best?

Microsoft's Surface products are not suitable for everyone, but if you want a powerful 2-in-1 with great battery life, there are not many comparable products. When you examine the news and different entries of the Surface line, it becomes much more difficult to decide which is the best. To try to understand it, we compared Surface Pro 6 vs. Surface Book 2 and compared them in terms of design, performance and portability.

To check out some of our other 2 in 1 favorites, check out our buying guide.

Design

Virtually all of Microsoft's Surface product line has a hard-to-find professionalism outside of the Apple MacBook Pro family of laptops, and the Surface Book 2 is easily the flagship device in this regard. It is extremely robust, with a solid magnesium frame, both lightweight and extremely durable. It looks solid, professional and of high quality – even though its price is high.

The Surface Pro 6 is just as well built, even though its thinner keyboard is not as substantial or domineering. One could argue that his new black color scheme for this Surface Pro generation is a little more futuristic than the more conventional Silver Surface Book 2, but it's largely a personal choice.

Since both devices are equipped with removable keyboards, they are incredibly light in tablet mode. The Surface Book 2 is somewhat lighter at 1.6 pounds (1.75 pounds), despite its wider 13.5-inch screen.

The Surface Book 2 also offers slightly larger and more forward-looking connectivity options, even though it is the older of the two devices. It has a pair of USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 ports (which is confusing, we know it), a headphone jack, two Surface Connect ports and a full SDXC card reader. The kicker, however, is that it has a USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 port.

While the Surface Pro 6 is equipped with its own USB-A 3.0 port, a headphone jack, a miniDisplayPort port, a Surface connection port and a microSDXC card reader, it does not have USB-C connection.

Performance

Despite the price disparity between these two devices, their hardware configurations are closer than you think. The Surface Pro 6 starts at 900 USD and has 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and an eight-generation Core i5-8250U processor. Upgrades include an i5-8350U, or for $ 1,500 you can get a Core i7-8650U processor with 256GB of storage. For $ 2,300, you can have 16 GB of RAM and a terabyte of SSD disk space.

The Surface Book 2 starts at $ 1,200 and comes with a Seventh Generation Core i5-7300U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. It's a rather weak starting point compared to the Surface Pro 6 , since the 7300U is a dual-core processor. However, if you are ready to spend $ 2,000, you get the same Core i7-8650U as in Surface Pro 6, the same 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. More importantly, you get a discreet Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU, which is a more advanced and powerful foundation than anything Surface Pro has.

By spending $ 2,500, you double the RAM and storage, while the maximum configuration of $ 3,000 gives you a terabyte of SSD space. There are also options for a 15-inch version if you need more screen space and power, with a built-in GTX 1060 graphics chip, although these configurations are again more expensive.

For IT in general, the Surface Pro 6 is without a doubt the best machine in terms of performance compared to performance, but in terms of graphics capabilities, the Surface Book 2 is ahead of its little brother if you configure it with the dedicated graphics chip.

Taking advantage of all this power, the screens of both systems are excellent, each with an identical pixel density of 267 pixels per inch. The only difference is that the Surface Book 2 has a slightly higher resolution of 3,000 x 2,000, compared to 2,736 x 1,824 on the Pro 6, which explains its extra inch of screen space.

Portability

The Surface Pro 6 and Surface Book 2 are both incredibly portable 2 in 1 laptops, especially in tablet mode. The Surface Book 2 is the largest and heaviest device, with a 12.3 x 9.14 x 0.59-inch keyboard and a weight of 3.62 kilos in the Core i7 configuration. However, when you remove the keyboard and use it as a tablet, it weighs only 1.5 kg.

The Surface Pro 6, on the other hand, weighs 1.7 kilograms without the removable keyboard and measures 11.5 x 7.9 x 0.33 inches.

When the Surface Pro 6 is a little easier to handle, it can not match the battery life of the Surface Book 2. According to Microsoft, the Pro 6 offers an impressive 14.5 hours of life, but Surface Book 2 is estimated at 17 hours. An important caveat, however, is the battery life in tablet mode. The Surface Book 2 has two batteries: one on the keyboard and one on the tablet. As the tablet is smaller, the battery life in tablet mode alone is two to three hours.

The book is better, but there is a but

It is difficult to choose a winner from these two Surface 2 in 1, because each of them is better in some respects. The Surface Pro 6 is more affordable and offers better material at a lower price. But it is not as robust, or as graphically efficient, or as durable as the Surface Book 2. It also lacks this important USB-C port.

With this in mind, the Surface Book 2 is the best material. However, it is also more expensive. If you want a dedicated graphics processor and a system that works as both a laptop and a tablet, it's almost perfect. If you do not need this graphics power, the Surface Pro 6 is very comparable and available in mid-October.

Winner: Surface Book 2