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Laptops that convert into tablets are like flying cars. Flying cars don't exist because the design gap between what makes a good car and what makes a good plane is insurmountably vast. There are great cars. There a great planes. But no one has come up with a way to have a great car that's also a great plane.
Similarly there is no such thing as a great laptop that is also a great tablet. The design differences, and user expectations for each, are too vast to pack into a single device.
Microsoft gets this, you can see it in the Surface line up. While the Surface Book 3 is both a laptop and tablet, it is very much a laptop that converts into a tablet. The Surface Go 2 ([8/10 WIRED Recommends](https://www.wired.com/review/microsoft-surface-go-2/)) is a tablet that can be used as a laptop, while the new Surface Book 3 is the laptop that can be a tablet.
### The Awkward Big Brother
In most ways the Surface Book 3 feels much like it's predecessor, which my colleague David Pierce [called](https://www.wired.com/review/review-microsoft-surface-book-2/) "a serious computer for serious business." It's Microsoft's enterprise version to the consumer Surface Go 2 and "prosumer" Surface Pro.
The trade off, and difference between the three comes down to portability versus power, with Surface Book 3 erring on the side of power at the expense of portability.
The design of the new Surface Book 3 is largely unchanged from the previous version. The same awkward looking, but very function hinge is still there (according to the company the huge hinge makes it possible to put the battery and processor in the screen without the whole thing flopping over). This is precisely the sort of compromise hybrid devices must make, and the hinge remains, well, awkward, though functional.
The Surface Book 3 makes a wonderful laptop. The keyboard is one of the best I've used on a laptop (Microsoft's keyboard design across the Surface line is second to none), and the trackpad is one of the best you'll find outside of a Cupertino-designed machine. The screen is another highlight. It's wonderfully sharp and bright with excellent color rendering in both the sRBG space and "enhanced" RGB.
Detach the screen though, and new set of problems arise. The most notable is that there's no stand. Unlike the Go 2 and other tablet's there's no cover here to help you prop up the screen. If you want to watch Netflix on the couch, you're going to have to get creative with pillows to prop up the screen.
Battery life is something of a conundrum with the Surface Book 3 because in addition to the usual "it depends" about what you're doing with it, you get the "it depends" which part you're using. In laptop mode, with brightness dialed down to about 75 percent I was able to get 12 hours while playing a video on repeat. The screen as a tablet has a much shorter battery life. Looping video here the Surface Book managed only about 4.5 hours. However, after two hours of watching Netflix I was only down about 30 percent.
The Surface Book 3 in tablet mode is best suited to drawing, which is to say it's still a lap or desk-bound device even without the keyboard. It's a great plane. It is not a great car. Microsoft does not include a [Surface Pen](https://fave.co/2QvwjHO){: rel=nofollow}, which will set you back another $100 on top of the Surface Book 3's already steep starting price of $1600.
### Power at a Price
While the lack of a stand limits tablet mode somewhat, the far bigger compromise comes on power. You'd think that $1600 would get you a pretty powerful machine, but it doesn't. That's the base-level i5 model. There is power to be had in the Surface Book 3, but you'll have to spend at least $2000 to get it. And even then you'll get Ice Lake series chips rather than the more powerful H-class chips found in other premium $2000 laptops.
The good news is that you can now get a Surface Book with a discrete GPU. It's in the base and only available when you're in full laptop mode, but presumably that's when most people would need the extra power anyway. The version I tested featured the Nvidia Quadro RTX 3000 graphics processor, which is no slouch. Discrete graphics and an option to get up to 32-gigabytes of DDR4 RAM, mean the Surface Book 3 can be plenty capable. There's also support for Wi-Fi 6, which really does seem to improve reception and speed provided you have a router that supports it.
Unfortunately it get all that power, and the detectable screen as tablet, you're going to have to shell out well over $2000. That's not outrageous for a flagship machine, but it's a lot for a machine that makes as many comprises as the Surface Book 3. When the first Surface Book arrived it was ambitions and innovative. In many ways it still is, but in terms of sheer computing power for the price it no longer stands on its own. It's also no longer the best screen around. The Dell XPS line, the latest 16-inch Macbooks, and others bring great screens, and more power at similar prices, albeit without the tablet features.
Still, for certain kind of user, namely those who want a tablet to go with the laptop, this will be as close to true laptop-tablet hybrid Nirvana as they're likely to get.
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