Surface Laptop 3

Guitarcarfanatic · 9 Oct 2019 at 17:27

Hi All,

Anyone considering one of these?

The 15 inch comes with Ryzen chips, but without benchmarks, will be bit of an unknown.

I've been very impressed with the Go for knocking around in the bag for travel situations. Had a less good experience with the Surface Pro 4 (battery life was awful and ran pretty hot, but super well built).

Considering moving my Macbook Pro 2015 on and the new 15 inch version looks like a contender. I did try an XPS 13 in January, but it went back after a few weeks as found it to be lacking in the performance department (i7, but one of the tiny mobile ones).

Thoughts?

niko · 11 Oct 2019 at 21:00

thinking about it, ive still got a surface pro 3-in fact on it now, but battery is shot. tbh if battery worked ok i wouldn't change it. the lenovo yoga is also a possible as is an asus zen of some description

harvey.l12 · 14 Oct 2019 at 10:23

I’ve been looking at the 13” surface laptop 3. Really appeals to me now with the metal finish. Just a shame you can’t open them up easily

glenimp617 · 21 Oct 2019 at 08:01

I'm going to order one for work today. Thinking of getting the 13" black metal version. Depending on price either the i5, 8gb, 250gb or the i7, 16gb, 250gb

My surface laptop 2 has been brilliant, but if works paying

harvey.l12 · 21 Oct 2019 at 08:32

Let us know your thoughts when you get to using it. I’m stuck between this surface laptop 3 and the new HP spectre that’s being released very soon

Vita · 21 Oct 2019 at 17:43

TheOracle said:
I'm going to order one for work today. Thinking of getting the 13" black metal version. Depending on price either the i5, 8gb, 250gb or the i7, 16gb, 250gb

My surface laptop 2 has been brilliant, but if works paying

How have you found the 2? I’ve been looking for a laptop and you can buy these for a reasonable sum second hand. I’ve looked at alternatives but cannot find anything, and seem to keep coming back to the sl2.

silvagti · 21 Oct 2019 at 21:26

Reviews are out for the 15" Ryzen surface laptop 3. Overall it seems a bit of a mixed bag. Graphics performance is better than Intel onboard but still no match for a dedicated GPU. CPU benchmarks seem similar to Intel though battery life seems worse. It's also disappointing that unlike the Intel versions the AMD model doesn't have WIFI6/802.11ax support.

In general it seems like the 13.5" Intel model would be the better option assuming you don't have a strong preference for the larger screen.

DanF · 22 Oct 2019 at 20:15

Just been in to the MS store to try them both out. The size difference isn't that big, it's just 1.5" vs 2.3" from a 13.3 to 15.6 laptop.
Overall the build quality, look, feel etc are all really good. Keyboard feels nice, screen looks fine, trackpad is a bit bigger than the SB2 and SL2 ones.

There's still a review embargo on the 13.5" for some reason but guessing the Intel I7 will be a better CPU with more modern features

Think I'm gonna get the 13.5 with 16gb & 256GB setup. It's replacing a dual core 2016 MBP 13" so a nice bump in performance and gets me back on windows or better .net development support.

silvagti · 22 Oct 2019 at 21:38

I'd definitely be going for the 13.5 Intel model if it were me. There's rumors of a new 16" MacBook which might also be worth a look.

DanF · 22 Oct 2019 at 22:13

Yeah it'll be really expensive and bigger/heavier. Really don't need the power of a new MBP for my usage.

Can get £100-125 off the SL3 with current deals (work discount or JohnLewis e-card voucher)

DanF · 26 Oct 2019 at 16:25

just finishing setting up the laptop, i7, 16gb, 256gb ssd model

couple of notes, it doesn't play well with my router on 5g but works fine on 2.4g. Performance was really bad until the MS Store and some other installs finished. Took about 3 hours to get normal

Malware analyser was constantly kicking in as well which was fixed by installing malware-bytes

It's now running fine and feels pretty fast. Geekbench 5 results put it a fair bit faster than ryzen 7 models and old work Surface Book 2 as well. Completely destroys the MBP 13 2016 it's replacing

https://browser.geekbench.com/user/BushiDan

silvagti · 29 Oct 2019 at 11:48

Weird that the WiFi has issues as I'd have thought it would be better being WiFi6 capable?

If my, now 5 year old, desktop PC ever dies I'm probably going to switch to a laptop as my primary device as I don't need any more power and would value the portability/convenience of a laptop.

How are you finding it otherwise in terms of usability? Do any apps/websites have issues displaying on the 3:2 aspect screen?

Edit: had a play with one at my local JL and I'm hugely impressed with the device. The screen is lovely and I really like the aspect when reading web pages. The keyboard and trackpad are also excellent.

One thing I wasn't sure about was the port selection as it only appears to have standard USB, USB-C and the proprietary surface power connector which seems fairly limited. If I wanted to connect a 1440p/4k monitor over displayport does this work ok via the USB USB-C connector and would that use up the only USB-C port on the device?

DanF · 29 Oct 2019 at 13:28

screen ratio is really nice for productivity. I do programming so benefit from this over 16:9 or 16:10 screens. For media you'll get some black bars.

The laptop is still really new with new intel chipset, I'm sure the teething issues like wifi will be fixed with some updates. TBH I can't tell the difference from 2.4 to 5ghz on a 80~mbps line.

Guitarcarfanatic · 5 Dec 2019 at 22:42

So a month on, any feedback? Got an XPS 13 on order, but may cancel and swap for the 13.5inch SL3. If I do, will be i7 16gb 256gb model - Black or Sandstone...

rickjames · 6 Dec 2019 at 10:40

Would also like to know peoples thoughts on this; considering a Surface laptop, but unsure between the 2/3/Book 2 right now

DanF · 7 Dec 2019 at 18:06

yeah It's a good laptop. Just one issue so far, when plugged in the cpu fan kicks in pretty quickly, but doesn't do it on battery power.
Really nice form factor, pretty light, good keyboard, good trackpad. The screen is just pretty good, not the best black depth. There's a default setting that auto adjusts brightness which needs turned off.
Really like the screen ratio, just can't go back to 16:9 on a laptop, it's useless for productivity on a 13"

rickjames said:
Would also like to know peoples thoughts on this; considering a Surface laptop, but unsure between the 2/3/Book 2 right now

I've got the SB2 as a work laptop. It's fine and has better battery life but heavier and more awkward to use. The heavy screen makes it a bit less balanced on your lap. If you need some GPU power then the SB2 clearly wins. It's CPU cooling isn't great though and will thermal throttle under sustained load.

Guitarcarfanatic · 8 Dec 2019 at 17:08

So I pulled the trigger and it has arrived. Finally a laptop fit to replace my 2015 MBP!

Really well screwed together, amazing input (keyboard/touchpad) - best I have seen on a windows laptop, great screen ratio.

I went for the i5, 8gb, 256gb in matt black. Really impressed so far!

ninja2000 · 15 Dec 2019 at 18:04

I bought the base alcantara 128gb and just swapped in a 512gb ssd. Really easy process, had it installed in about 10 minutes and feet came off easily with no damage so I popped them back on with the original adhesive. I couldn’t justify the ms price for upgraded ssd! The 2230 512gb ssd cost me £65

rickjames · 16 Dec 2019 at 15:49

Hmm, just seen the teardown videos, seems easy enough. Base model is down to £879 now, tempted to go with it over the SB2. Argh.

rickjames · 22 Dec 2019 at 10:13

13 years later.

Bought it from JL for £899, but pretty hopeful I can get a price match over the Christmas period