Surface Book vs. MacBook Pro: on apples and oranges

The reviews are there, and there are more and more coming, but PC World has tried to make the same comparison that Microsoft talked about in the launch event.

Of course comparing one machine to another is a little bit unfair, but every comparison is that. The MacBook Pro (13 inch, Core i5-5752U) is slightly faster than the Surface Book (Intel Core i5 -6300U ) on CPU-related tests, but 1) that’s a comparison between a 28W and 14W TDP chips and 2) these are chips from different generations.

And then there’s the comparison between an integrated GPU (Intel HD 6100 on the MacBook) and a discrete GPU (supposedly, a special version of a GTX 940M on the Surface Book). And the result is pretty clear. Which confirms again that the comparison is unfair. In any case:

The Surface Book’s premium price is what a premium is about. You can’t get discrete graphics in any MacBook Pro, but you can on the Surface Book. And the payoff is clear.

True.

Update (10/23/2015): another comparison, not that realistic either. I can’t understand how a tech reviewer can’t understand the difference between processors. Comparing machines by their price can really give us some surprises. Processors on both machines are absolutely different, (dual core Core i7-6600U with a 15W TDP on the SB vs a quad-core Core i7-4870HQ with a 47W TDP). Of course the MacBook crushes the Surface Book. C’mon.

Source: Surface Book vs. MacBook Pro: It isn’t twice as fast. It’s three times as fast | PCWorld

Javier Pastor is a technology journalist that has been writing about tech since 1999. He started writing for PC Actual in Spain, the leading printed magazine in the country, and in 2006 started to write online. First as the Chief Editor for The Inquirer ES, and after that for MuyComputer until 2013. That year he became senior editor at Xataka, the leading tech news website in Spanish with over 5M uniques/month (Aug'15, comScore). Xataka is part of Weblogs SL, a blog network that gets over 40M uniques/month and that has a wide catalog of publications in Spanish. The Unshut is his new venture and allows him to express his opinions and thoughts on everything touched by technology, and follows what he has been doing at Incognitosis, his personal blog, since 2005.