Microsoft Surface Book 3

5owners with an opinion

40%of verdicts positive

1/2positive/negative since 2024

0happy after 3+ years

Praised for design; criticized for performance and battery.

What people wrote

Likes it

It is interesting the consumer high you get from buying things. I remember being in a microsoft store like 12 years ago and wanting this Surface laptop. Holding it in my hands but I couldn't afford it. Now I have a Surface Book 3 and it's still cool but not the same experience as it being a flagship/new at the time. Still there are a lot of laptops I'd like to try when they get cheaper. As far as GPUs I like the Nvidia founder designs, it was a while before I got a 3080 Ti Fe that I ended up having to sell at a loss when I didn't have a job that was sad. I have a 4070 founders now which does struggle on certain games at 1440p but I'm going to use it to run local LLMs.

Doesn’t like it

Semi-related: I had a Remarkable 2 and the best part of it for me was the texture writing. I decided to use a Surface Book 3 but the writing isn't the same... probably will try one of those textured surface cover things. E-ink is interesting as it's nice wrt long battery life but the slowness sucks too and this is not about the Android devices with an e-ink screen. RM2 you could program so that was cool.

Doesn’t like it

Exactly. I also used to have a Surface (both the regular one and a Book 3) but the smaller screen of the former and the higher cost and weight, and lower performance, of the latter made me buy a MacBook. The form factor appeal is there for the Surface, it's just death by a thousand cuts in terms of their other problems. I never had an issue with Windows development however, as I generally used WSL 2.

Doesn’t like it

I really love the idea and I hope they succeed in the long run. Having an easily replaceable battery is just about enough for me to want to buy one over any other laptop. It’s always the thing that degrades the fastest for me, even with premium laptops (looking at you, Surface Book 3). I want a laptop that lasts. In the age of everything being glued together, a laptop that can be end-user repaired is refreshing.

Doesn’t like it

I can confirm that various Dell XPS 15 models and Microsoft Surface Book 2 and 3 models are just not usable without the power plug for my software development (and very rare gaming) needs. I also need the power plug for a simple thing like a Microsoft Teams meeting that last longer than one hour. Compare that to my MacBook Air M1 which runs for a full day easily. Also, standby works. With Dell I learned it's better to always shut down.

Likes it

> As for Apple, you buy a 3 year warranty with AppleCare for less than the surface costs and that includes accidental damage for a small excess fee per event. What? Maybe this is true for the M1-based MacBooks now, but I bought my Surface Book 3 with my Microsoft Business account (which was made for me for free when I bought my Surface Book 2 by a manager at the Dallas, TX Microsoft Store) and for $249 I got a three year warranty with three accidental damage incidents, also with no deductible. Yes, I had to pony up for a year of Office 365 for $69 to get the normally-$349 warranty for $100 off, but I already use Office 365 yearly sub anyway, so adding on an extra year of something I was going to buy anyway, for $100 off a 3-year, 3-incident, deductible-free warranty isn't exactly a "hard sell". Although the only problem I've ever had with Microsoft's hardware products was my original Surface Book, and I'll admit, that was a miserable experience, but I had zero problems with my SB2 and none so far with my SB3. Having said all that, I might actually switch over to Apple if they had a 15" 2-in-1 like my SB3. In order to functionally replace my Surface Book 3, I have to buy a $1499 12.9" iPad Pro, a $129 Apple Pencil 2nd gen, and a $2299 MacBook Pro M1. Adding Apple Care+ and tax brings the total up to $4670. But I also now have the problem of having to lug around two devices instead of just once as I do with the Surface Book 3. My totally pimped out Surface Book 3 + warranty + O