The launch of the Surface Book marks Microsoft’s first entry into the laptop market. The Surface Book is a touchscreen laptop and is convertible. In order to win the market from the MacBook Pro, Surface Book is equipped with a four piece hinge system, dual GPUs (one in the base and one in the tablet) operated by Windows 10, and a touchscreen tablet that users can detach with a press of a button.
When the laptop is closed, there is a gap between the screen and keyboard, until they meet at the front edge. When the laptop is opened, the bottom appears to be larger than the top. The pen is attached to the side of the laptop via magnets. However, Microsoft doesn’t call Surface Pro a laptop, but prefers to call it a clipboard.
Panos Panay, Microsoft’s head of Windows devices, says that 
Surface Book is 80% of a laptop because users are going to use it differently, more like a clipboard. He said, “This clipboard is for writing, it’s for learning, it’s for reading.” Even though this makes Microsoft’s laptop a convertible product, the company is not looking to market it as such. He further added, “You want to be more productive than that? Then click into the base and go for it […]. It’ll take some time for people to resonate with that, but [this is the use] we built it for.”
Surface Book was developed from the idea of creating an actual book an idea championed by Microsoft’s design chief Ralf Groene. . He stuck yellow tape on the side of a folder to portray his intention and now, years later, you have the Surface Book, which is the same size as the model and it opens and closes the same way.
Creating a laptop that gave users the feel of a book wasn’t enough, recalls Panos. They needed to take it one-step further so Groene came up with the idea of taking the top off. For both designers, this was a challenge. They managed to deliver on this added complexity by inventing the “best screen for reading” and “the best laptop ever.”
To provide stability for the keyboard, the designers created it using heftier material to prevent the bottom from toppling over when a user opens it. They wanted the laptop to fold just like a book and to achieve that, took them six months of prototyping.
Since the base of the Surface Book is slightly heavier, they decided to create a hinge, mimicking a carpet being rolled out. This provides increased stability to the product. This is the also the first time that a product hosts two GPUs, one at the bottom and one at the top.
The designers said that they are the first ones to have equipped a laptop with not one, but two GPUs. For them, it was all about balancing the top with the bottom. They even had to decide on the amount of battery they placed on the top and the bottom.
With users constantly demanding more battery power, the Surface Book provides them with 12 hours of it, with four hours at the top and eight at the bottom. Another point of difference between Surface Pro and other laptops is its detachable quality. Users can carry the Surface Book like a laptop, but they can also detach it by pressing down on a key on the keyboard for a few seconds, until they hear a click sound. Users can hold the corner and take the top out of the laptop.
Will this revolutionary design capture the attention of the public and give MacBook Pro some real competition? Only time will tell!
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