Did Microsoft Just Unveil the 'Ultimate' Laptop?

Tech publications are already raving
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 6, 2015 3:49 PM CDT
Did Microsoft Just Unveil the 'Ultimate' Laptop?
Microsoft's Panos Panay holds a Surface Book laptop during a presentation in New York on Tuesday.   (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

During a Surface event Tuesday, Microsoft shocked the world—well, the part of the world that cares about things like Microsoft Surface events—when it announced the Surface Book, the company's first-ever laptop, Engadget reports. According to Wired, the device's screen can detach from its keyboard base to be used as a typical Surface, but the high-powered GPU in the base allegedly makes it twice as powerful as the MacBook Pro when connected. It also features a fancy hinge that can lock the screen at any angle, even backward. Microsoft executive Panos Panay calls the Surface Book "the ultimate laptop" and the "thinnest and most powerful PC ever created."

And he's not the only one excited about it. "Microsoft just proved how boring and futile laptops had become by showing us a laptop that’s exciting," Gizmodo gushes. "It's gorgeous," reports the Verge. "Microsoft is going head-to-head with the MacBook Pro." And Engadget says it's "easily the most surprising, intriguing device Microsoft has put out in a while." Early criticisms of the Surface Book mostly focused on what the Verge calls its "insane" hinge. According to Gizmodo, that hinge causes the screen to shake during typing, and Wired reports it keeps the laptop from closing all the way, "which might rankle the especially orderly." The Surface Book will hit stores Oct. 26 with a starting price of $1,499. (More Microsoft stories.)

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