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The Surface Book is Microsoft's 'ultimate laptop' (pictures)
Microsoft's first ever laptop is the Surface Book, a 13.5-inch hybrid that houses most of its power in the tablet section, but some extra graphics oomph in the keyboard.
Dong Ngo
The Surface Book is the very first laptop Microsoft has ever made and it promises some really cool innovations. First off, it has some 12 hours of battery life.
Thinnest on the market
At just 7.7mm thick, it's the thinnest laptop on the market. And that includes both of the laptop's parts: the screen and the keyboard base.
Touchscreen
The Surface Book has a 13.5-inch PixelSense touchscreen. The screen has 6 million optically bonded pixels.
Surface Pen
The Surface Book includes a stylus called the Surface Pen.
Easily folded
You can fold the Surface Book the opposite way to work directly with the screen. This is especially useful when you want to use the stylus.
Gorilla Glass screen
The Gorilla Glass screen is gorgeous.
8MP HD camera
The Surface Book has a 8-megapixel rear-facing auto-focus camera, capable of recording 1080p HD video. It also has a 5-megapixel front-facing 1080p HD camera.
Plenty of ports
The Surface Book has two USB 3.0 ports, a full-size SD card slot and a Mini DisplayPort on the base. It also supports Wi-Fi 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0.
Dynamic fulcrum hinge
The screen and the base are connected by what Microsoft calls the "dynamic fulcrum hinge."
Inside the hinge
The hinge can expand when need be.
Easy separation
The hinge strongly connect the screen and base, but also allows for easy separation. You can pull the two apart and turn the screen into a tablet.
Backlit keyboard
Like most modern laptops, the Surface Book has a backlit keyboard with thick-looking keys, but it is designed to be quiet to type on.
"Best-in-class key strokes"
Microsoft says the Surface Book has "best-in-class key strokes" and that its keyboard is "quiet, stable and comfortable."
Multitouch trackpad
The trackpad is optimized by Microsoft's engineering team. It's made of glass and supposedly has a totally new feel to it.
Powerful GPU
The laptop's dedicated Nvidia graphics processing unit (GPU) is in the base section, so only works when the two are connected. Microsoft says it used the Xbox team's expertise to optimize the GPU.
Great for heavy applications
The result: The laptop is slated to be powerful enough to play the latest 3D games with ease as well handle any graphics-intensive application, such as Adobe Premiere Pro.
Twice the power of MacBook Pro
Microsoft says the new Surface Book is twice the speed of Apple's MacBook Pro.
Sixth-gen Intel Core i7 CPU
The Surface Book is powered by an Intel sixth-gen Core i7 or Core i5 processor. It comes with up to 1TB of solid-state storage and up to 16GB of RAM. The laptop weighs just 1.6 pounds and measures 9.1 by 12.3 by 0.51-0.9 inches (232 by 312 by 13-22.8mm).
Available October 27
You can pre-order the Surface Book on October 7 and the laptop itself is available on October 26. The US price starts at $1,499.
UK and Australian details are yet to emerge, but the US price converts to £980 or AU$2,075.