Welcome to the third part of my ordeal with the Surface Book. Without much preamble, we’ll get right into it.
Disillusionment part 5: the Windows Time Machine Clone.
I really liked Time Machine on my old MacBook. It always worked smoothly, in my case with a network hard drive. With Windows 10, there would theoretically have been something similar, but after just a month I gave up. It worked a maximum of once or twice with the network hard drive, then there were only error messages, but no more backup.
The disillusionment part 6: Fan.
It felt like the fan started at every little thing. And so I spent many hours with an annoying noise on the desk. My self-assembled desktop computer runs so quietly even under load that I can listen to music alongside, together with my Surface Book this was not possible at all. This was not a problem with the MacBook before, it got warm but never loud.
The disillusionment part 7: the audio quality.
My MacBook never had problems with a trouble-free playback of audio files. The Surface Book, on the other hand, always produced a permanent, clearly perceptible noise – regardless of whether with or without the docking station – so that undisturbed music enjoyment at work was not possible. Especially not with the loud fan. For the preparation of my THD DJ course, I always had to use my desktop computer, which was quiet. Apparently, Microsoft developers never listen to music. Nevertheless, my Surface Book was shown on the Microsoft website 4 years ago together with a DJ. In the context of audio performance, I could always have a good laugh at this depiction. It was probably a futile attempt to position the product similarly to a MacBook.
Disillusionment part 8: the quality of the device itself.
The quality of a MacBook is indisputably great. Nothing bends, the screen has a straight line, the device is simply super stable. The Surface Book, on the other hand, is definitely not worth its price. The tablet-panel showed a clearly visible bend at the upper edge. Should not really happen in this price range.
These were the main reasons for switching back to the Mac. Beyond that, there were many other minor annoyances that ultimately led to the switch. Now I’m happy to give the Surface Book back to our lab engineers at the THD after the move. Finally, here’s a three-month field report on how my new MacBook is working.
Stay tuned, more stuff is on the way.