Lee Morris of Fstoppers sits down with the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 side-by-side in this video review. He also has a short write-up on their site when they compared the Surface Book to the MacBook Pro.
At the end of the day the Surface Book is an amazing achievement. I don’t understand how they made that magnetic hinge, it works so well that it’s a pleasure every time I detach the screen from the keyboard but the poor battery life of the tablet portion of the Surface Book makes it pretty useless to use without the base. It’s also not the power house that I thought it would be. 4k video footage is quickly becoming the new standard and the laptop was unable to edit it without rendering first, that alone would keep me from spending $2700 on it but I realize that the average Surface Book user, and even the average Fstoppers reader, does not edit 4k video footage. For you, the Surface Book may be powerful "enough" but that’s up to you to decide.
I’m glad to see this comparison done between the Surface Book and Pro 4. One thing I did not notice that Morris points out is that the Pro 4 has the kickstand and the Surface Book does not. I don’t know how I missed this. This is huge. This alone makes these machines wholly different.
Something I also noticed about all of the reviews I’ve read so far (and I’ve read far too many) is that everyone says the Surface Book is a technological feat, and one to be admired, but that the price, battery life, and need to keep the keyboard around soften the value. I agree.
I’ll be watching closely over the next few revisions of Surface Book as I think Microsoft is onto something both with this line of product and with Windows 10 being one OS for all devices. Something I think Apple will regret not doing themselves five years out.
I’ve tried multiple times to have Microsoft PR send me a few of these devices but I’ve been unable so far. I think I’m going to keep trying.