New Surface Book i7 UK release date, price & specs

Microsoft used its special event in New York on 26 October to unveil new Surface devices and an update to Windows 10. Here, we bring you everything you need to know about the new Surface Book 2, including the Surface Book 2 release date, price and specs.

Also see: Windows 10 Creator’s Update | Surface Pro 5 | Surface 4 | Surface Studio | Surface Phone

Microsoft Surface Book 2 UK release date: When is Surface Book 2 coming out?

The new Surface Book, which actually isn’t called Surface Book 2 but rather Surface Book i7 or Surface Book with Performance, is available to pre-order today, and will be hitting the shelves on 10 November. We’re working to confirm that this applies to the UK too and will update you as soon as we know.

New Surface Book UK price: How much is Surface Book 2?

The Surface Book’s US pricing has been announced, starting at $2,399 for the model with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. Boost that to 512GB with 16GB RAM and it’ll cost you $2,799, or 1TB with 16GB RAM at $3,299.  We’ll bring you UK pricing as soon as it is available, but that directly translates to £1,960 at today’s exchange rate, much more than the starting price of £1,299 of the original Surface Book.

It’s certainly no small investment, but this new Surface Book i7 isn’t going to boot out the original models of the tablet, which are still available to buy if you don’t need that extra power or battery life and want to save yourself some cash.

The original Surface Book price has been cut on the official store. A discount of £160 signaled the arrival of a new model but the discount is only available for one configuration of the device.

Surface Book 2 specs and features

The Surface Book’s design remains the same, with the Dynamic Dulcrum Hinge, detachable 13.5in touchscreen and overall size and shape unchanged.

What has changed, however, is the Surface Book’s specs. Prior to its launch we weren’t convinced that Microsoft could do much to improve on the specs of the original Surface Book, which already had 16GB RAM and 1TB of storage. However, Microsoft has doubled the graphic capabilities and added 30% more battery life in this new model.

That’s achieved through its Intel Skylake Core i7 processor (hence the Surface Book i7 name) with a new GPU. There’s also a second fan to help support that extra power, and the battery is bigger for up to 16 hours of battery life in laptop mode, up from 12 hours in the original Surface Book model.