Surface Book 3 13.5 review: Microsoft convertible is slowly getting old

[Redaktion]

With the latest edition of the Surface Book 3, Microsoft updates its multi-talent to Intel's Ice Lake generation. We get a picture of the i7 variant with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 and clarify what performance users can expect from it in our review.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Surface-Book-3-13-5-review-Microsoft-convertible-is-slowly-getting-old.477543.0.html

[Lucas]

There's a glaring error in the article:

The contrast ratio of 13,033: 1 is obviously impossible and incorrect.

The black level of 0.03nit is achieved with a standard luminance of 92.64nit, as per the Calman pre-calibration screenshot. At this brightness, contrast ratio is 3088:1, still impressive.

At the panels max luminance of 388.67nit, the black level is 0.19nit, the contrast ratio is 2045:1.

[nvrfl]

Great, thank you! Any chance for Surface Go 2 anytime soon?

[4sofnature]

I don't think SB3 deserves a 87% rating like its predecessor, even in the convertible category. Other than the unique detachable form factor, SB3 falls behind its competitors in terms of battery life, CPU performance, screen, portability, everyday useability, pen input, I/O, price performance, etc.
Surprisingly the review didn't even include Dell XPS 13 2 in 1 7390, which only gets a 86% rating but which is, in my opinion, a overall better convertible for most people. 

[S.Yu]

I don't think SB3 deserves a 87% rating like its predecessor, even in the convertible category. Other than the unique detachable form factor, SB3 falls behind its competitors in terms of battery life, CPU performance, screen, portability, everyday useability, pen input, I/O, price performance, etc.
Surprisingly the review didn't even include Dell XPS 13 2 in 1 7390, which only gets a 86% rating but which is, in my opinion, a overall better convertible for most people. 

What's wrong with the pen input? If it's like the SP series then I can attest that the experience is far superior to XPS 13 2N1's. XPS 13 has both higher jitter and higher latency, with its bundled stylus or with the latest Wacom Bamboo, which provides essentially the same inking except with a slightly better pressure curve, but then it's one button short and the actuation pressure of the buttons is absurdly light. The Surface Pen is superior to those in every metric, only the XPS 13 2N1 doesn't support Surface Pen(detects, connects, but doesn't ink, SP4 pen and the latest both tested) even though Dell claims SPP support.

[4sofnature]

I don't think SB3 deserves a 87% rating like its predecessor, even in the convertible category. Other than the unique detachable form factor, SB3 falls behind its competitors in terms of battery life, CPU performance, screen, portability, everyday useability, pen input, I/O, price performance, etc.
Surprisingly the review didn't even include Dell XPS 13 2 in 1 7390, which only gets a 86% rating but which is, in my opinion, a overall better convertible for most people. 

What's wrong with the pen input? If it's like the SP series then I can attest that the experience is far superior to XPS 13 2N1's. XPS 13 has both higher jitter and higher latency, with its bundled stylus or with the latest Wacom Bamboo, which provides essentially the same inking except with a slightly better pressure curve, but then it's one button short and the actuation pressure of the buttons is absurdly light. The Surface Pen is superior to those in every metric, only the XPS 13 2N1 doesn't support Surface Pen(detects, connects, but doesn't ink, SP4 pen and the latest both tested) even though Dell claims SPP support.

Although Surface Pen is better than than Dell's Active Pen, former still falls Apple Pencil, Wacom AES, as well as others from ThinkPad and Samsung. The most notable downside of Surface Pen are its inability to draw straight diagonal lines. Others can be attributed to poor Windows software optimization for touch and pen input. This is also common on other Windows convertibles but at least they make up for that by being a better laptop than the Surface Book 3.

[S.Yu]

I don't think SB3 deserves a 87% rating like its predecessor, even in the convertible category. Other than the unique detachable form factor, SB3 falls behind its competitors in terms of battery life, CPU performance, screen, portability, everyday useability, pen input, I/O, price performance, etc.
Surprisingly the review didn't even include Dell XPS 13 2 in 1 7390, which only gets a 86% rating but which is, in my opinion, a overall better convertible for most people. 

What's wrong with the pen input? If it's like the SP series then I can attest that the experience is far superior to XPS 13 2N1's. XPS 13 has both higher jitter and higher latency, with its bundled stylus or with the latest Wacom Bamboo, which provides essentially the same inking except with a slightly better pressure curve, but then it's one button short and the actuation pressure of the buttons is absurdly light. The Surface Pen is superior to those in every metric, only the XPS 13 2N1 doesn't support Surface Pen(detects, connects, but doesn't ink, SP4 pen and the latest both tested) even though Dell claims SPP support.

Although Surface Pen is better than than Dell's Active Pen, former still falls Apple Pencil, Wacom AES, as well as others from ThinkPad and Samsung. The most notable downside of Surface Pen are its inability to draw straight diagonal lines. Others can be attributed to poor Windows software optimization for touch and pen input. This is also common on other Windows convertibles but at least they make up for that by being a better laptop than the Surface Book 3.

Don't know what you're talking about. Dell Active Pen uses Wacom AES, more importantly, so does Bamboo which performs nearly identically. Other Wacom pens only go with their own boards so I don't know about those.
The Pencil has better inking, but not fundamentally better than SP4's Pen. The tilt feature notably lags behind the inking and is far less accurate, so it's more of a gimmick, and the hard plastic tip has the worst writing experience of any device. Also, it lacks buttons(touch is not a good way to handle lassos which I map to Surface Pen's side button), and I personally far prefer Surface Pen's eraser to any button solution because of the far lower rate of misactivations. Oh, and iOS Onenote is sorely lacking in features compared to Onenote 2016, so choosing the Pencil means being stuck with inferior software.
Surface Pen has relatively bad diagonal jitter, but as I said, Dell's is worse but you were trying to push the XPS 13 2N1 as an inking device citing Microsoft "falling behind" which is what caught my attention. Microsoft is behind the Dell in many metrics, especially price-performance, but inking shouldn't be one of them.

[Mr X]

You guys are getting sloppy with the coil whine information. Lots of recent reviews that don't mention if the reviewer experienced coil whine or not. Please fix this, it's important for people that have sensitive hearing.

[dogstar001]

I have this device & I like it. The device looks great but the beauty in particular lies in its versatility. On what other device can I play a play a nvidia game then lie my lazy a** on the couch & watch a movie. further the 3:2 screen ratio is perfect for excel which I do alot of with work.
Notebookchecks reviews are excellent & in depth but sometimes I feel they fail to take a step back & look at the device holistically. IMHO This device is truly one where its sum is greater that the parts 

[Jakob with a K.]

some of these scores seem off.
1089 in Cinebench20? with 11gen Intel i7.and are this model not with
CPU fans?
I am on the 8gen fanless version, and im getting 1700 in Cine20 on that old i7 8gen (8650) and that's a freaking passive unit... no fan whatsoever on the computer.. the only fan are in the base with the dGPU.
on Cine15 its around 750, when I tested it some years back.
But I gotta admit. Im a sucker for these Books.. I really like these big Ipad pro like tablets..7mm and like 700g.. really a joy to use a big Windows tablet, and Windows 11 with Android will make it even more ideal with a lot of touch optimisation..
we have 3 of these Books.. a few of these Porsche Books that are i7 (7gen) 16GB, 512GB NVMe, 3k screen + 500nits.Hello2.0 TPM2
and the Porsche got lot of ports..thunderbolt3 on the tablet itself, + a  another full fledge typeC + 2USB3  + MicroSD, though the speakers are not good on the Porsche's
it was a co'align between 4 players these Porsche Books. - Porsche, Microsoft, Wacom (stylus 4096), and Quanta.(Quanta is also the player that makes most of Apples gear, Ipad pro, and Mac pro tower etc, as I recall)
(what a joke you cant even link to your scores and tests results)
Have installed windows11pro on one of the Porsche Books and it runs well, though the webcam and these 3IR cams.. didnt work after last preview win11 update, though a delete of the hardware and it works again... the Porsche also has the higher resolution I have seen in a Windows computer on the seflei cam.. its like 1944p.. most others are topping at 1080p..
but its the detachable things I really like, on these books.
thx for the review.