First, I did not think the MBP was that heavy. But you are absolutely correct. I put it on my scale and it comes in a bit over 4.5 lbs. (I'm attributing the extra weight to the stickers.) So that does make the SB2 faster, better screen, and longer battery life. Could be an expensive realization :-).
I was recalling the article in ars where they were talking about the LTE version [1], which is missing the i7. I suspect I'm the only one who wants a laptop with a decent LTE radio that can take advantage of the increased area to offer something which can pull in even weak LTE signals and work at something resembling full speed. I guess we have to wait for Intel to do some sort of Centrino type deal with an LTE modem manufacturer before we see something like that.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/microsoft-seems-to-h...
8th gen intel processors were not out when the new Surface Pro released. And they had to release it because it was long overdue since SP4.
> On the road my 12" Surface Book is a bit too little screen area and so I use my 15" macbook pro 2015 for that. The 15" version of the surface book 2 would be a win there but at 4.2lbs my shoulder will complain. (I briefly had the 4+ pound Sony VAIO and it was painful enough that I just never took it on trips as powerful as it was.)
15"MBP: 4.49lb(2015), 4.02lb(2016&2017)