{"id":232,"date":"2015-11-05T19:31:25","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T02:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jimubc\/?p=232"},"modified":"2016-05-08T20:14:43","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T03:14:43","slug":"the-surface-book-has-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jimubc\/the-surface-book-has-arrived\/","title":{"rendered":"The Surface Book Has Arrived"},"content":{"rendered":"
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And how could you not make this association?
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First impression \u2013 Microsoft has hit the sweet spot! Much though I hate to admit it, I\u2019m a little tired of being hunched over my Surface Pro 3 when I\u2019m in desktop mode, and the Surface Book is just that little bit larger, and it makes a huge difference.<\/p>\n

In my workflow I absolute must have the ability to use my main device as a tablet for taking notes with a pen, or sketching out ideas, and making mind maps. The Surface Pro 3 did an excellent job of that and I\u2019ve been very happy with it for fourteen months.\u00a0 But it\u2019s always felt like a bit of a compromise when I was in desktop mode. The Type Cover was fine when I was out and about, and until I started typing on the Surface Book, I had no complaints.\u00a0 But Microsoft, you did a great job on the Surface Book keyboard, and now when I switch back I realize what I was missing.<\/p>\n

Why get a Surface Book<\/strong> when my Surface Pro 3 was doing a stellar job as my main machine? People have been asking me that and now that I\u2019ve got it I can tell them:<\/p>\n

The larger screen size DOES matter.<\/strong> I can tile four windows on the screen and they are all comfortably readable.\u00a0 (Hint: Windows+Left, Windows+Up puts the current window in the top left corner. Open another application and use Windows+Left, Windows+Down and that application will sit in the lower left corner. Do the same on the right side and you\u2019ve got four windows up). I wish that I had found these keyboard shortcuts sooner. Trying to do that with a touchpad is tricky. Here\u2019s a screen shot of what I\u2019m seeing right now.
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I think Microsoft got it right with the 80:20 idea that many people will use the Surface Book 80% of the time as a laptop and 20% of the time as a tablet.\u00a0 I might be a little heavier on the tablet side of things but much of that extra time, I\u2019ll probably flip the screen over and keep it attached to the keyboard for the prolonged battery life.<\/p>\n

Why get the Surface Book instead of a Surface Pro 4?<\/p>\n

The point a which you can make a direct comparison is when you configure a machine with<\/p>\n