Surface Book 2 Discussion Thread (13.5" and 15" models)

on the other hand, since a 512gb (not mg Kumabjorn!) SD card is over 300 bucks, might as well spend the extra 400 and get the terabyte SSD.

 

BUT they do NEED Thunderbolt 3 - rather than cobbling together the PCIe gobbling Surface Connector, just use TB3 between base and screen just like a eGPU box - maybe it was necessary three years ago when under development, but no longer...

 

I don't understand hardware architecture enough to know if that would work or not or what it would take to do that. I understand more of video cards , but not CPU/motherboard/IO/Bus architecture even though I studied some low level stuff in college.

Someone with better knowledge of computer design could give you a more proper answer.. and maybe manufacturing.

And as a software developer, I get annoyed when someone who doesn't know comes up to me goes.. you just need to do this in this area for it to work! No, it might not be THAT easy

 

Here where I work, there's a bunch of people with Surface 4's with the dock. Until they come out with a Surface to USB-C connector, I don't think Microsoft is looking to make businesses mad when they invested all this money into their hardware.

I'd rather it be one USB-C cable as well, but I do really like the magnetic nature of the Surface Connector because I have kids and they tend to run into my computer cord.

 

The PCWorld video has some comments on the dock at minute 4, saying that playing some games for an hour and a half he lost 40% battery power. So this is even worse than what people have observed using the included charger on full graphics and CPU load. BTW he says that the included adapter offers 180W, which is incorrect. Either way, looks like the dock is too weak to power the SB2, which is very bad. I can only hope they come out with an updated dock.

Side note: so not only didn't they use the relatively future-proof TB3 standard in order to stick with their own standard, they force existing users to upgrade their dock anyway!

 

If that is the case, its just lazy engineering on Microsofts ends. The Dock in and of itself isn't an essential purchase. And the i7 in the Book is pretty much the same relative i7 used in most every other notebook and tablet from every other ODM....and no one else is having trouble implementing Thunderbolt 3. For comparison sake the HP Zbook X2 is rocking a 7th gen 15w i7 also with only 12 PCI-E lanes..... and that has 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports and an optional docking solution. If HP can figure it out, Microsoft has no excuse not to.

 

Sadly, as I proceed through the day with typical office work and random tasks along with a small bit of gaming to check the load, the Dock simply seems under powered for the SB2 15.

Ignoring the 1060 GPU, I can get the batteries draining with heavy CPU/disk usage alone. Add the GPU and I'm right there with that PCWorld video you posted. A quick 5 minute game test drops batteries 6% while plugged into dock.

I haven't seen a drop yet when using the provided adapter by comparison.

Not sure where that leaves me though? Does MS have other docking plans for their premium device?

Having said all this, I'll still be keeping the 15" as it's great in so many areas and I'm a sucker for Surface devices... it just currently can't be a true desktop replacement until we can figure out a properly powered docking solution.

 

The problem if I remember correctly is that the dGpu (and keyboard and the other components inn the base) being physically outside of the real computer and attached with a surface connector, uses up the lanes that others use for the thunderbolt 3 port.
Maybe they could have added a tb3 port in the base getting rid of that surface connector where you attach the dock and the other usb ports...

 

This has been an issue with the gaming community. Some games use more power than the power supply provides so despite being connected to the grid it still drains the battery during a gaming session. However, Microsoft claims that outside games this shouldn't be a problem since "ordinary usage scenarios" (they didn't define that) use less power than supplied so the battery will not drain. In Microsoft's defence they never claimed the SB2 was suitable for games.

 

I'm just totally speculating on this until the X2 comes out. But I'm guessing the extra size and thickness allowed HP to add the extra silicon for Thunderbolt 3 to be enabled. Now, could Microsoft have added that extra silicon to the dock since all the ports are there, that's something you'd have to ask them.

also, it says the keyboard for the X2 is Bluetooth.. so does it only use the pogo pins for power and uses Bluetooth as a connection? Thus eliminating the need for any physical data connections between the keyboard and the tablet , saving some PCI-E lanes?