No one saw it coming: The Surface Book, history’s first Microsoft laptop (or notebook, if you prefer). And has there ever been a more apt setting for a special delivery than the giant and largely defunct Post Office building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City?
Microsoft’s new head of Windows devices, Panos Panay, was positively gleeful on Tuesday when he introduced the magnesium laptop with an unusual hinge, and he thoroughly enjoyed punking the audience into believing that it was a "normal" touchscreen laptop — until he “replayed” the reveal video with a crucial piece of detail added — it’s a convertible.
This was something different, especially for Microsoft. A full-blown MacBook Pro competitor (and for every other high-end laptop on the market, really) that wore its innovation like a badge. What was special was unmistakable: A four-piece hinge system that rolled out like a carpet, a touchscreen tablet computer that held tightly to the base and still detach at the touch of a button, and dual GPUs (one in the tablet and one in the base) that could somehow be smoothly managed by the Windows 10 operating system.
Up close, the Surface Book feels expensive, solid and distinct. The laptop closes, but it doesn't seal. There's an intentional gap between the keyboard and screen, until they meet perfectly at the front edge.
When opened, the laptop appears to shift its own weight, a bit of mechanical-engineering sleight of hand that somehow makes the bottom larger than the top. The new pen holds fast to the side in a magnetic vice grip, but feels more than ever like a real writing implement. The brand new “eraser” actually, in the most pleasing way possible, dragged across the screen just a little bit.
Microsoft really has something here, and I couldn’t wait to hear the story behind the Surface Book from the designers themselves.
It’s a notebook
I found Panos Panay, along with design chief Ralf Groene sequestered a floor above the massive keynote stage. On the way to see him, I passed relics from the Post Office’s storied past. Like Microsoft, the entire building is in the midst of a reclamation project, one that will transform a huge swath of it into a commuter rail station. It reminded me of all Microsoft has gone through to reach this point and how much further it has to go in its own renovation project.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, LILI SAMS
The entire Surface line — especially the popular Surface Pro 3 — and Windows 10, have been a big part of that, providing the slow and steady progress back into the spotlight Microsoft needs.
The Surface Book, though, is special — even radical. It’s the slam of a wrecking ball that startles everyone and instantly draws their attention. Whatever happens next, the moment Microsoft introduced it will long be remembered.
Panay, who looks absolutely drained when I find him, knows that the Surface Book has that “otherness” that needs to be explained.
“Somebody asked me, ‘Why isn’t it a tablet?’ because it’s not, it’s a clipboard. It’s going to be used differently,” Panay told me as we sat before a collection of design objects that represent the path from Surface Book ideation to launch reality.
Surface Book, said Panay, will spend 80% of its time as complete laptop. It’s why they call the top a “clipboard” instead of a tablet. Microsoft is not pitching the product as a convertible or hybrid. It’s a device that can elegantly serve a dual purpose.
“This clipboard is for writing, it’s for learning, it’s for reading. You want to be more productive than that? Then click into the base and go for it.... It'll take some time for people to resonate with that, but it is the use case that we built it for,” said Panay.
Germination
A couple of pieces of black cardboard held together with a bright strip of yellow tape that says “Surface” stand as proof of this original intention.
I pick it up and it feels stiff and useless, but represents an important idea, the germination of Surface Book as a complete device.
“We had this conversation where Ralf waked in and he said, ‘Hey, Panos, let’s make a book,’” recalled Panay.
A couple of years ago, Groene's team created the black and completely non-functional mockup; its only relation to the final product is its relative size and the fact that it folds open and closed. It was a pretty basic notebook concept.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, LILI SAMS
Except Panay took to holding it portrait style in one hand, thinking of it as more of an actual book. “We had this vision of ‘let’s make something that feels like a book, let’s go to the next level,'” Panay told me.
Yet, the concept lacked the big idea.
“And then, you walked into me in the lobby and said,” recalled Groene, dropping his voice into a conspiratorial whisper, “‘Let’s take the top off.’”
Groene, who immediately grasped the design and engineering challenges did not exactly jump for joy.
Panay grinned at the recollection, “What a blast, right?” Panay and Groene told engineering they wanted “the best laptop ever” and the “best screen for reading” and “I want to pull off the top and create a whole new category for people. This is Surface, this is what we do. Let’s have people come with us on a reinvention.’”
One can only imagine the color draining out of the engineers’ faces.
Ever since the debut of Windows 8, there have been plenty of PC convertibles, but they usually make design compromises because of their hybrid nature. The keyboard base is usually much heftier than the screen or the screen/tablet top is cantilevered forward so the bottom doesn’t topple over when you open it.
Panay and Groene wanted to build a laptop with Surface DNA in the screen, but have it fold closed like a book.
Groene’s team spent six months tinkering in the model shop. “You have one hinge point, what can you do? And then we figured that you have an object on the top and then balance it out with an object on the base. The object on the base needs to be heavier than the object on the top,” he told me.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, LILI SAMS
That’s a fairly obvious concept, but the differential between the Surface Book top and bottom would be measured in ounces, not pounds; the base would only be slightly heavier, which meant they’d need another piece of innovation to make the book look work.
“We had this idea of a hinge that rolls out like a carpet and as you open the laptop, you make the footprint [of the bottom] bigger in order to make this whole product more stable. So if the center of gravity walks outside the footprint, things tip over and if you make the footprint longer, it’s more stable,” said the designer.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, LILI SAMS
Panay saw the effort to create balance in the Surface Book as part of a broader effort to achieve literal and figurative equilibrium.
“There’s balance in the software,” said Panay, noting that the Surface Book’s ability to juggle multiple GPUs (one in the clipboard top and a more powerful Nvidia chip in the base) is a direct result of working closely with the Windows 10 software team. It’s also, claims Panay, a first. “It’s never been done before.
This product is the first ever where the GPU is in the base and then a second GPU is in the top.” The result is a “balance” between hardware and software.
As for the more literal balance, that was a fairly intense mechanical-engineering problem.
“When you put all that weight in the top of the product, it’s like 1.57 pounds on the top, you have to balance that out with base. That’s the key. Every single trade-off in the product, how much battery you put in, how much battery you put down bottom, how do we hold to the 12-hour target that we set?” said Panay.
In the end, the battery is split, though not evenly, between the base and top. The top gets four hours of battery life, and the bottom gets eight.
Groene described the act of building a product like the Surface Book as more than a simple collaboration. Engineering and design, he told me, have to do a kind of dance. “The product that will bring this vision to life is this choreography between design and engineering and software coming together,” he said.
That was all well and good, but I wanted to know who, exactly, designed the sure-to-become-iconic hinge?
IMAGE: MASHABLE, LILI SAMS
I suspect Panay or Groene knows who made the first prototype — there were, after all, a couple of very early, plastic maquettes of the hinge right in front of me. Still, all Panay would say is, “If we pointed at one person and said, ‘Hey, this one person figured it out,’ it would be both a mistake and it would be unfair. What you see here is a multitude of functions coming together. This hinge is a mechanical-engineering marvel.”
A solid one, but also two
The Surface Book is distinct from other convertible computers in numerous ways, probably exemplified most by how “clipboard” detaches from the bottom. Unlike its Surface Pro cousins, you cannot simply pull the two pieces apart. They are held together like glue.
“You can pick it up like you pick up laptops,” said Groene.
To detach the device, you hit a dedicated keyboard key for a couple of seconds until you hear a satisfying click, then you can grab a corner and tip the top right out of its Surface Book seating. This simple act, though, is actually a combination of hardware engineering and a little software audio theater.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, LILI SAMS
Groene pulled forward what looked like an aluminum model of the Surface Book. It lacked a real screen and keyboard, but had a cutaway just below the screen area and right above where the hinge would end.
There was also, oddly, a 9-volt battery embedded in the screen area and a tiny white switch right above that.
As they were trying to figure out the detachment solution, which included the consideration of levers, solenoids and even hydraulics, they settled on a nifty little alloy called Nitinol. Its marquee feature? It has a sort of “muscle memory” and tightens when you charge it.
The model showed how they tested this first half of the detachment solution. When Groene hit the white button, tiny metal plates where pulled silently sideways by a collection of Nitinol springs.
"In the final product, we used same idea, but added sound design to give you confidence,” said Panay. That’s right, the click you hear when releasing and securing the Surface Book top is nothing but theater. Even so, “that’s what gives me confidence on stage to pick it up without hesitation,” explained Panay.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, LILI SAMS
Panay, Groene and their team knew the Surface Book could be special and so they agonized over small details, maybe no more so than how to add what Panay called a "kiss" to the vaunted hinge. They wanted to give the outer edge of the four-piece hinge a little flourish.
"This is a month of back and forth on how do we light up the whole hinge? Do we just do it when it’s folded? Like when it’s folded in you get that small kiss," said Panay.
"We had this feeling: We needed to put something on it that refers to precision of this device," agreed Groene. They settled on a subtle shine on the outer edge of each segment. I actually noticed it when I was first handling the Surface Book (and silently wondered if someone accidentally left the protective plastic covering in place).
"We will not tell you the backstory of how endlessly it was to get it done in manufacturing. The many meetings we had to have. It added to our gray hair," recalled Groene.
In the end, they got the exact shine they were looking for.
We’re family
Surface Book is both a notebook and a card-carrying member of the Surface family, right down to its chief connector. Back when Microsoft was making the Surface Pro 3, which introduced the redesigned multi-directional connector and charger, Panay said they were also thinking about the future Surface Book.
“It was meant for every generation of Surface moving forward because we needed to do high-speed data between the two products,” said Panay.
While Panay was hesitant to give a single person credit for the hinge, he did recall that one engineer played a crucial role in the connector design. “The vision from one of the engineers was, ‘I’m going to create this connector, Panos, and if you want it to connect anything — two devices – together, ever, it’s going to allow you to do it, and you can charge anything and you can dock anything’,” he told me.
Without that connector, the Surface Book dock would not be able to accept the clipboard in sketchpad mode, where the screen is facing out. You can draw on the screen without the base attached, but then you lose the power of the Nvidia GPU
Misunderstood
As part of the Surface family, though, Surface Book does run the risk of being misunderstood.
Panay introduced the Surface Book as a laptop first, withholding the surprise detachability. They also front-loaded an Apple MacBook Pro comparison. That choice came directly out of some hard lessons Panay learned during the launch of the first Surface Pro.
As he recounted those initial reports, I can tell Panay is still smarting from what he saw as inaccurate comparisons between the 10.6 mm thick and rather heavy first-generation Surface Pro and Apple’s iPad. “The press, they grabbed it and were like, ‘This is the iPad; look at this, it’s thicker, it’s heavier.’ But, you know, it was like a hundred times faster.... But we never got that right comparison, and it felt like an unfair fight.”
Still, Panay blames himself, which is why he made sure to spell out the comparison on Tuesday for the hundreds of assembled journalists.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, LILI SAMS
“It’s fair to compare Surface Pro 4 to MacBook Air and it’s fair to compare Surface Book to MacBook Pro. When I say fair, in a relative sense. These products sit in the same category,” Panay told me.
And unlike that first Surface Pro, there is nothing, Panay contends, first-generation about the Surface Book
“One of the things we did not want to do is we did not want to launch a Gen 1 product that was OK and then give you a Gen 2 product, where you're like, ‘Oh, now I get it.’… Somewhat you can think of it as Gen 1 was in our labs and Gen 2 became this product,” said Panay.
Even so, the design is unusual enough — the screen and keyboard don't sit flat against each other, for example — that I had to wonder about the strength of the device. Panay told me they put the Surface Book through all kinds of pressure tests.
"It holds up as good or better than any laptop of the planet," he insisted. Ralf chimed in that the gap is actually beneficial. "Even if you put an inordinate amount of pressure on here," he said as he patted the top of the Surface Book, "it doesn’t put pressure on the middle because there is a space."
The road ahead
Microsoft has spent years bringing the Surface Book to market, but didn’t let current Surface Pro owners touch it until just a week or so ago. “A week before the event, after the product’s designed, after we’re done with everything, we then... handed it to people last week,” said Panay who then smiled broadly and grew almost wistful, “Boy you know how delightful it is when somebody is so inspired by what they’re seeing?”
Panay expects that the Surface Book and Pro 4 are creating some conflict in diehards who may not know which one to buy “You know, that’s a good challenge,” said Panay.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, LILI SAMS
It’s likely, though, that before too long consumers will have many more choices. Surface Pro 3 design knockoffs began appearing in earnest over the last 12 months. The innovative Surface Book will surely be next. Is Panay comfortable with that?
“The idea is, we’re here to reinvent and inspire the category, we’re here to make a business,” said Panay, adding, “One of our missions and goals is, we’re lighting up Windows 10. And if it inspires others to do very similar products, we will gladly…” Panay stopped and caught himself. The Surface Book is his baby, he’s clearly proud of it, maybe he even loves it (the way you love a product). After stumbling a bit more on the word “gladly,” Panay continued. “I don’t know if I’d say ‘gladly’. It’s hard from a product-making perspective, to be fair. But I will say, we expect it. I don’t want to say ‘gladly,’ I can’t. I think others would, but I think we expect it.”
Is it a new MacBook alternative? Yes and no. The design, performance and utility will, as Panay hopes, be compared to the MacBook Pro, but people do not switch platforms for designs. They often switch because, sometimes, they have to for a job or a school. Switching ecosystems is dicey business.The Surface Book is the nearest thing we have to a Windows 10 game-changer — a fresh design and bold ideas that move the PC needle. Something different and smart that surely made some folks in Cupertino sit up and take notice.
On the other hand, the Surface Book could make some wonder why they haven’t given Microsoft a fair shake. Microsoft’s first laptop is far from laughable; it’s potentially groundbreaking. As I wound my way back out of the Post Office and though a long hall of museum-like artifacts, I realized just how far from irrelevant Microsoft has become.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Post a Comment