After the Surface Book was unveiled last October, it went on sale in North America just a few weeks later, but potential buyers elsewhere were left waiting until the beginning of this year, when Microsoft opened pre-orders in several other markets. The device - which Microsoft calls "the ultimate laptop" - was released in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and China last month, and from today, it"s available in several European markets too.
In the UK, the Surface Book is priced from £1299, rising to £2249 for the Intel Core i7 model with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and discrete GPU. Along with the Microsoft Store, the device is being sold through other retailers too, including Currys PC World and John Lewis.
Along with the UK, the Surface Book is also available in France, Germany and Austria, priced from €1649 to €2919; and in Switzerland, where it costs between CHF 1,699 and CHF 2,999.
Those thinking about buying the Surface Book will no doubt be relieved that Microsoft has finally fixed a particularly frustrating issue that prevented the device - as well as the Surface Pro 4 tablet - from properly entering a "sleep" state, resulting in high battery drain even when not in use. That problem was among several for which Microsoft apologized to its customers in December, but the company did not deliver a fix for that particular issue until yesterday.