Ask Paul: July 20 (Premium)

Happy Friday! This week's edition of Ask Paul features another great set of questions from readers.
Battery tests
Chris_Kez asks:
For battery testing I think you've said that you use video playback, similar in spirit to what Microsoft is doing, but once you've traveled with a device for some period of time you'll report back on your real world impressions. I've often wondered... why wait until you travel? Could you just use the device at home to do your usual things but keep it unplugged? While the tasks and workload may vary a little from day to day, doing this for a few days should give a good picture of exactly how long you can go until you hit the <5% mark, and you can do it without fear of losing anything or being stuck out in the wild without power.
This is something I've thought about. The current laptop I'm testing, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga, is coming along on the three-week home swap trip, and I was thinking that it could be an interesting real-world test of battery life.

But as for "why," I guess it's just that I'm a fan of consistency. Artificial battery life tests are, well, artificial. But at least they are directly comparable.
What I Use
SeattleMike asks:
Paul, in the past I've really enjoyed your "What I Use" articles. With your upcoming European trip, will you be sharing what you use for travel these days? I have a trip to France coming up next year and would find that very helpful.
I will absolutely do this. Oddly, when I started yesterday's story about the home swap and being stressed, I intended that to be the "What I Use" post for the trip. But I realized I was a little more concerned with other matters at that moment.

For whatever it's worth, I'm hoping to write about a number of travel-related topics during this trip. No promises, but the list I have so far is international apps and services, VPN, Google Flights, Google Trips, Project Fi, language translation, Mobile Passport, and credit cards and points. But if you or anyone reads this has topics they'd like to see covered, please let me know. Here or via email.
NUC update
cheetahdriver asks:
I did a search on NUC, and noticed you haven't said much about it/them lately. Looking at a unit to take with me for a month or two recovering from surgery in the great frozen North and was wondering what you thought about the current iterations? I don't do PC gaming but do a ton of Office365 work on multiple screens (recovery does not mean not working...).
I use my existing NUC, which is a few years old now, for The Windows 10 Field Guide, but it's not my daily PC. But I check out what Intel is doing there each time there's an update, and I am considering buying a newer model this year. I'm still a big fan of these PCs. But I've not used the latest version, sorry.
More books
cheetahdriver also asks:
When can we expect "The Microsoft Account Field Guide"?
So I'm not sure if you're asking this because I mentioned the need previously or because you think it's ...