The 2015 Surface Book had its pros and cons, but it was a good model machine. Everyone really really dug it! Although based on rumors for right now, quite a similar report has been fashioned for the 2016 Surface Book 2 - basically congruent that it maintains a few flaws, also maintaining a distinctive and well built design, but with faster performance, and a highly impressive battery life in this variant. If, of course, these all ring true in the end, this refreshed version may be a well-rounded Microsoft product made for success.

The new Surface Book, as made available by leaked images surfacing all over the internet appears to look exactly like last years’. So, if there were any design improvements you were expecting or hoping for, that will probably come next time around. The internals are what have improved, but we’ll begin with the design. It has a nicely put together chassis and body, a comfortable keyboard, gorgeous display, and an actual selection of ports (compared to many laptops these days that have been going for the minimalist approach). Of the rumors, one has indicated a possible new hinge system for the laptop, said to have fewer ridges compared to the last Surface Book hinge, addressing what customers have more or less requested to be fixed- a gap that appears when the Surface Book is closed. Another change, and some may find this a bit debilitating, is a heavier product than last year. Weighing in at 3.68 pounds, we are considering that heft to be pretty much blamed all on that bigger battery, which in the long run, means nothing but goodness for productivity time. Sixteen whole hours of video playback are expected in laptop mode- that is a lot. There’s four hours in tablet mode, which isn’t fantastic, but it’s still an improvement, and improvements are what we want to see in next-gen products right?

The answer is yes, and yes is probably what you’re going to shout when you hear about the Surface Book 2’s display. The 13.5-inch screen features a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, supportive of 4K video, and tattled to work with virtual reality systems. More specs involve a better and faster processing setup, starring Intel’s latest, its next-generation Kaby Lake processors (as well as possible four core configurations). Since the 14nm chips have barely shipped, it’s far more feasible to expect an early 2017 release for the Surface Book 2. We can also expect the PC to offer native USB 3.1 Type-C ports, plus Thunderbolt 3 support.

Remember, nothing has been stated or made official by Microsoft yet, so it’s pretty amazing how highly anticipated this machine is, to the point that we may be expecting some very exciting changes. However, we will all be anxious to find out what is true, or let’s put it this way, if there is anything that needs to be corrected. There is no release date of course, and we don’t know whether to expect a higher price take than the current $1,500 (on average) Surface Book, but we probably should. This is especially the case if in fact the default configurations include much better CPU and GPU performance, and those Kaby Lake CPUs.