Microsoft Surface Go Review: Performance, Where Art Thou?

August 29, 2018 - 10 minutes read time

This is a multi-part review. Make sure to check the whole thing out with the links below!

The first few sections of this review have been all about the Surface Go’s best aspects, but this section sadly takes us into what I see as the biggest challenge for the device: performance. Look, I get that this is a $399 device and it’s not going to be the fastest machine in the world, but I personally found the performance issues to be relatively shocking for a device sold straight from Microsoft.

The Surface Go is sporting an Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y processor, which is a dual core processor from the Kaby Lake family of processors. It’s a year old processor at this point and it was already a super low end processor when it came out, but let’s see how it fares in late 2018.

The Intended Use Case

The Surface Go is not meant to be a high end computer that multitasks with hundreds to Chrome tabs and another 10 apps all running at the same time. Instead, the proposed use case is for a user to do one or two light tasks at a time. So maybe have Twitter and a browser open, but maybe don’t try to also run Word at the same time.

As an iPad user, I figured this would be a simple transition. I use an iPad Pro with no more than 2 apps at a time, and things a great, it’s my favorite computer ever. Sadly, this 1-2 apps at a time lifestyle is harder to implement on Windows than you’d expect, and even when I used one app at a time, I still experienced performance issues that made the device borderline unusable.

The “Single App at a Time” Lifestyle is Hard to Stick With

The first problem I had was that even if I was able to get great performance from a single app at a time, I had to use my computer in a very unnatural way to achieve this. Many app like to run minimized or lose all your current data when they’re closed, which means the process for switching away from one app was typically to save my work to a file (old school, and only if the app supported it) or finish what I was doing because my status would be lost if I closed the app entirely (Edge tabs, for example). Then I could manually close the app with the window close button and launch the next app.

That process feels annoying to me, and negates much of the benefit of having a traditional PC operating system. One of the big draws of Windows and macOS is the ability to run multiple apps at the same time and have full control over what is running. With the Surface Go, I felt like I had all of the overhead of a traditional operating system (file management, app management, slowdowns, etc.) with all the limitations of something like iOS or Android. It felt like the worst of both worlds and not the “no compromises” experience one is supposed to have with Surface devices.

Even with One App at a Time, Things Are Slow

I posted that video to Twitter after going into a slight rage about single app performance on the Go. The cardinal sin for computers, in my opinion, is to have the text on screen lag behind your keypresses. This happens in Twitter, Word, and numerous other apps at times, and I can’t explain why it’s happening, but I can say it’s super annoying.

The problems continue with Chrome, which is basically unusable on the device, even with a single tab open. The app locks up constantly and scrolling is a hellscape of sadness. I had tons of issues with YouTube videos stuttering in Edge, so I bought the much-loved MyTube app and gave it a shot. It is definitely better in terms of performance, but it too sometimes has issues displaying smooth video after 10-15 minutes. It’s not a problem 100% of the time, but it’s enough that I don’t trust the device to even play videos every time.

For a real shocker, here’s what the CPU usage looks like as I edit a single text file (this article, actually) in Caret, a plain text editor:

Even if we move out of apps themselves, the operating system itself just feels like it’s struggling to keep up. Every action has a delay from opening the Start menu to launching apps. Part of this is likely due to the eMMC storage in my baseline model, but considering the CPU shows 100% usage whenever I so much as move the mouse, this computer feels like it’s always working as hard as it possibly can.

Cheap Doesn’t Need to Mean Slow

I made the above video to show the differences between the performance of the Surface Go and an 18 month old iPad. The iPad costs over $100 less than the Surface Go, so the fact that it beat out the Surface at every test was disheartening. And for what it’s worth, the Surface Go was as fast as I’ve ever seen it when I recorded that video. That’s the best case scenario for it, while it’s often less impressive than that. Meanwhile, the iPad is consistently about the same.

The problem here is pretty clear, Windows 10 is simply too heavy to run on lower end hardware like this. There is too much going on at a core level, and the low power, fan-less hardware to handle well.

External Displays

The Surface Go has a USB-C port which can output video, and I have it hooked up to a 27″ 1440p 60hz monitor. I was a little worried about abysmal performance when pushing more pixels over a wire, but it holds up perfectly well here here. That’s not to say it’s amazing or anything, but I didn’t notice any degradation in performance between things on the tablet vs the external display. Games, of course run miserably at the full resolution, but that’s to be expected.

The bottom line is that if you are okay with the performance on the tablet, you can plug it into a display and it’ll be alrioght there too.

Let’s Play Some Games

Now I know the Surface Go is very much not a machine you should buy to play games, but games are a common task for tablets, so I had to test out a few games to see how they did. This isn’t a “gotcha” section where I run Far Cry 5 and complain about bad frame rates, I’m looking at some lower end games that might work okay.

This is a super random assortment of games, but they’re what I was able to run and mostly that I already owned in Steam and GOG.

Fortnite

No gaming test in 2018 would be complete without Fortnite, and I’m sad to say that the Surface Go simply can not play this game at all. Here’s a quick demo of the performance:

It’s really not good, and this is on the absolute lowest settings the game has.

Hearthstone

The game is locked at 30fps and it ran that way much of the time. The game defaulted itself to medium settings, and maxed out at a lower resolution than the Go’s native 1800×1200 resolution. I did notice that after about 10 minutes of playing, the back of the device heated up to uncomfortable levels and the frame rate dropped to 15-20fps.

Also worth noting that the touch controls for this game are excellent. Whether you use a mouse and keyboard or your fingers to play, it’s a good experience. Just know it’s going to lag a bit if you play more than a couple rounds.

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory

This is a 13 year old game, but it’s one that I really enjoyed as a teenager. thankfully, this runs at over 60fps on the default settings, which are basically 720p and medium settings. If you want to play on high, it’s going to run about 10-15fps, which is a little bit of a bummer.

Asphalt 9

This is a mobile game brought to the PC, and it expectedly runs perfectly well on the the Go. It typically runs at 30fps, but when crashes happen and a decent number of particles are on screen, it drops for a fe seconds. Another game totally playable with touch controls.

Diablo 3

This 6 year old game runs like a dog on the Surface Go. Even on the lowest settings and a miserable 480p resolution, I still didn’t even get 30fps. Using anything higher resulted in a completely unplayable experience.

Starcraft 2

Similarly to Blizzard’s Diablo 3, this game runs terribly, even at lower resolutions.

Gunpoint

This is a really cool indie game that came out in 2013 that runs perfectly well on the Go. 60fps locked.

Left 4 Dead 2

Valve’s old, but still fun zombie shooter runs well if you turn down the graphics and resolution. If you’re willing to do that, the game is a pleasure to play, ranging from 330-60fps most of the time, although I experienced the same overheating issues which made the frame rate tank after about 20 minutes of gaming.

Guacamelee

This game is a champ on the Go! I got a full 60fps at 1800×1200 resolution and it never dropped. I only played like 20 minutes, but it was damn impressive.

Star Wars Episode 1 Racer

We’re getting into super old games here, but this relic from 1999 plays expectedly great, never dropping from 60fps. It looks absolutely terrible by modern standards though.

Final Take

I have complicated feelings about the performance on the Surface Go. On the one hand, if you baby it aggressively and truly only do super low intensity stuff, it can be okay. I’d like more in a $400 computer, but the benefits of the tablet form factor and premium build quality meant they had to make some trade offs. As for gaming, it runs old games mostly fine, and you just have to know that almost no new games aren’t going to happen.

But at the same time, the $329 iPad shows that you can ask more from your sub $400 computers than you get from the Surface Go. I think that asking someone to use Windows and only use one app at a time is a pretty major annoyance and negates many of the benefits of having Windows in the first place. Even if you stick to that one app lifestyle, the fact that you still routinely have major performance drops and significant lag on a regular basis is hard for me to swallow.

The Surface line is supposed to be Microsoft’s vision for computers, and while the higher end Surface line might do well, but if this is what Microsoft deems acceptable performance for a Windows experience, I’m truly surprised. As I mentioned earlier, the culprit here is partially the processor, but it’s also a fundamental issue with Windows itself: it’s just too much, and requires too high a baseline processor to run at a good clip.

If you are getting this as a device you’ll be using for small tasks here and there, it might work for you, but I really worry about people who buy this expecting it to work for many years. People buy iPads every 5 years or so. This thing is barely hanging on right now. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like 5 years down the line.

Microsoft Surface Go Review: Surface Type Cover and Pen

August 28, 2018 - 10 minutes read time

This is a multi-part review. Make sure to check the whole thing out with the links below!

While the hardware of the tablet itself is quite impressive, the official accessories that go with this tablet are pretty damn impressive as well. Microsoft has 3 official accessories for the Go, a new Type Cover, the Surface Pen, and the brand new Surface Mobile Mouse. I think that is the appropriate order for them as that is how important they are to the overall experience of using the Surface Go.

One cool thing here is that these accessories can be purchased in your choice of 4 colors.

I chose to get the burgundy ones, but I could have also gone with platinum, cobalt blue, or black. The black Type Cover is $30 less than the other ones and is all plastic instead of using Alcantara.

Also worth noting that I did not buy the new mouse as I don’t have any need at all for it. By all accounts it sounds fine for a $29 mouse, but it’s not something I’ll be able to cover in this review.

Surface Go Type Cover

I would go so far as to say that you really shouldn’t even buy the Surface Go unless you intend on buying a Type Cover as well. Without it I really don’t think you’re going to get a complete experience. I know I said I wouldn’t, but please indulge s single paragraph about Windows 10.

Windows 10, despite shipping in a tablet device, is still very much the same old Windows we’ve known for decades. It is intended to be used with a mouse and keyboard above all. Yes, you can touch the screen and some things are genuinely enjoyable via touch, but this device feels at its best with a good old fashioned keyboard and mouse or trackpad. I wish this was not the case, I really with Microsoft was forging ahead more quickly into truly touch-first interfaces, but the market has slowed them on this front and it’s a shame.

Alright, back to the keyboard.

Let’s start with how this thing connects, which is very satisfying. It snaps into the Go with a thunderous THWACK every time, and connects even stronger than the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard. I might say it’s even too much, as taking it off requires a relatively serious tug, but you know it’s not going anywhere when it’s connected.

It immediately connects (no wireless here, the connector plug is rumored to be just an oddly shaped USB 3 port) and the keys light up momentarily to let you know it’s ready to go. I’ve yet to have a connectivity issue, with makes sense because again, it’s a wired connection.

When it comes to actually typing, the keyboard feels very good. You should know that I am a big fan of the Smart Keyboard and Magic Keyboard, so low-travel keyboards are my preference, but if that sounds at all like you I think you’re going to like this one too.

There is a full function row at the top that doubles as media/brightness/etc controls, and they’re lovely to have, even if they’re a bit small. They didn’t have more space to make them bigger so I’m more happy to have them here than for them to be missing entirely.

One thing I find odd is that the keyboard likes to be put up at an angle, elevating the keys every so slightly, but I really don’t like this. A smidge of an angle is okay, but I mostly think keyboards should be flat. The bigger problem is that this creates a small air gap between the bottom of the keyboard and the surface it’s sitting on. This leads to a little bounce as the keyboard flexes under your fingers as you type. It’s not a lot and it’s honestly not a big deal, but it’s enough that I have taken to actively not propping up the keyboard and simply using it flat on the table. This makes the key presses feel much more solid and more comfortable for me overall.

Moving down a bit further is the trackpad, which I will simply say is far and away the best trackpad I’ve ever used on a non Apple device. It’s seriously not even close, and while it’s not quite as good as my MacBook Pro, it’s shockingly close. It’s big enough and smooth, and has a physical click.

And the final bonus is that the keyboard lights up when it’s dark! It does it automatically based on the surrounding lighting conditions, and you can set it to any one of 3 brightness levels manually. I love this and really, really wish the iPad’s Smart Keyboard had this.

The Caps Lock and “fn” keys also have persistent lights that show you when they’re active as well. Another nice touch.

Surface Pen

The Surface Pen is a very good tool for drawing, but unlike the Apple Pencil, I find it to be far less compelling as a general input device. Despite this limitation, it does actually have some nice features that make it work better with a mouse-based operating system than you might expect.

The first thing I noticed about the Pen was that it works right out of the box with no pairing required. The buttons don’t do anything right away, but the basic touch stuff works great. You do have to go to the Bluetooth settings to pair the device to get its full functionality, but it was a nice first run experience to just have it work right away.

Another nice feature is that the Pen is magnetic and is also round with a flat edge, both of which help make it so this doesn’t go rolling around where you don’t expect it. The magnet is very strong and is meant to stick to the side of the Surface Go itself, but you can stick it to basically anything metallic. The flat edge also helps make it so this doesn’t roll around when you put it on a flat surface.

The Apple Pencil is not magnetized and is perfectly round. I find the round build to be slightly more comfortable than the Surface Pen’s flat edge, but I really appreciate how much better they Pen is at staying where I put it. The Apple Pencil is weighted to prevent rolling, but it’s far less effective than the Pen.

But let’s get back to the Pen for input. I made this video about the differences between the Pen and Pencil and it’s pretty dramatic.

The Surface Pen does double duty as a touch device and a mouse replacement. This is cool as it let you do things like hover over things (particularly nice on the web), but it’s less convenient for quickly navigating the user interface. You really have to tap with “intention” any time you want to select something with the Pen, and that frankly got tiring for me. I felt like I was slowed down when using the Pen for navigating the UI, and I ended up electing to just use my fingers for touch navigation. Again, without getting too much into the nature of Windows here, this is more frustrating that it could be because Windows has a lot of UI elements that re quite small, and other things that simply only work with hover events, which touch as no substitute for.

If you are an artist or just enjoy doodling now and again, then you’re going to like the Pen quite a bit. While there is a an annoying delay an intentionality around navigating the UI, this is not a problem for drawing situations, and the Pen is very responsive there, and has nice palm rejection.

Microsoft advertises an absurd 4,096 levels of pressure (Apple doesn’t say for the Pencil), and 21ms latency (Pencil is 20ms), and as someone who uses the Apple Pencil everyday, the Pen immediately felt familiar. I wouldn’t say it was more responsive than the Pencil, but it was basically a wash for me in this regard. Ultimately, they’re both fantastic for drawing on screen.

Also notable on the Surface Pen is the button at the top. Clicking this button at any time can bring up the Windows Ink Workspace, which lets you choose to open any of your Windows Ink-enabled apps or take a screenshot and mark it up with the Pen. You can also set it up to do different things, such as taking a screenshot and immediately jumping into the screenshot markup app, or you could have it launch an app of your choice. If you want more, you can also set rules for what happens when you double click and hold down the button. My setup is:

  • Single click: take screenshot
  • Double click: open Edge
  • Hold: nothing…yet

All of this can be set up in the Settings app under Devices.

As another bonus, and this is really cool, the button doubles as an eraser in almost every app. Just like a…pencil, ironically…you can flip the Pen around and erase basically anything. Apps handle this slightly differently, with some erasing entire lines/objects when you touch them with the “eraser” and others that do a more direct “erase the pixels under the eraser” interaction. The inconsistency isn’t really a problem in practice, and you figure out how each app works in seconds.

And finally, the battery life on the Pen is very good. Microsoft quotes a year’s battery on a single AAAA battery (included). I obviously have not had this long enough to test this, but it is nice compared to the Apple Pencil’s quoted 12 hours of battery, which needs to be recharged far more often. It’s nice to never have to worry about charging this thing…ever. I rue the day it does die and I need to find a store around me that sells AAAA batteries, but hopefully I’ll get a notification long before that happens and I can take the necessary steps to get one delivered in time.

The Combo Conclusion

While I would say the Type Cover is an essential purchase for the Surface Go, the Pen is more of a nice to have item. I think I like the Surface Go a bit better for having it, but I’ve had to change my expectation for what a stylus does on Windows to make it work for me.

Both of these devices feel very premium and are a general delight to use. I think the Type Cover is a great Windows keyboard full stop, and I really enjoy writing on it. The Alcantara fabric feels nice and gives this a different feel than more technology these days. I really appreciate the details here all of which add up to a very nice typing experience all around.

The Pen is more of a mixed bag for me, but almost entirely because of Windows decisions and not the Pen’s tech itself. The Pen feels good in the hand, and while I prefer the Apple Pencil a bit overall, there are certainly things Apple’s stylus could borrow from the Pen to make it even better. I love the button with customizable actions and the feel in hand is excellent. The single flat side is a win overall, but makes me feel like I’m always holding it slightly wrong, but it’s not enough to keep me from really enjoying this gadget.

Microsoft makes some great tablet hardware, and I’m happy to say that their accessories for these devices are just as strong.

Predicting Apple’s New iPhone Pricing

August 27, 2018 - 2 minutes read time

Apple is primed to release 3 new iPhones this fall, and based on many rumors and leaks, we’re pretty sure we know what we’re getting:

  • lower cost 6.1″ iPhone with X design, but LCD screen and larger bezels
  • iPhone X successor with 5.8″ screen and spec bump
  • iPhone X Plus with 6.5″ screen

Before making my official guess, let’s look at the entry level prices for Apple’s 3 iPhones today:

  • iPhone 8: $699
  • iPhone 8 Plus: $799
  • iPhone X: $999

Typically, Apple has kept pricing about thee same from year to year, but I expect more changes than normal this year, as the iPhone X really blew up the standard pricing structure last year. Here are my official guesses:

  • 6.1″ LCD iPhone: $749
  • 5.8″ OLED iPhone: $999
  • 6.5″ OLED iPhone: $1,099

I suspect the baseline iPhone will come up in cost another $50 as the new design and larger screen will add perceived value and will continue to increase the ASP for the iPhone line in general. While the iPhone X sold well in 2018, I suspect this new baseline iPhone will blow the doors off and lead to a notable increase in unit sales this fall. Making $50 more per phone will do wonders for Apple’s revenue and ASP without making individual users feel like they’re getting shafted. Oh, and if this thing comes in some cool new colors, people are going to love this thing.

And then there’s the higher end phones, which is a little tricky. If you asked me in the Spring, I would have guessed the iPhone X model would start at $899 or even as low as $799. After all, Apple pitched the iPhone X as a preview of the future of iPhone. It was something they suggested they were selling a year before it was really ready to be mainstream. Thus the super high price, and presumably, a phone that would cost less in coming years.

Given that Apple seems to have no problem selling their $999 phone today, I don’t think they’re going to drop the price at all anymore. At this point it feels like they’d be leaving money on the table by dropping the price. I suspect their feeling is that if people were willing to pay $899 then they’re also willing to pay $999.

As a random note, the full cost of all 3 baseline iPhone models in 2017 was $2,497. If my prices are right, the cost would be $2,847, which is a pretty dramatic increase.

Microsoft Surface Go Review: Hardware

August 27, 2018 - 11 minutes read time

This is a multi-part review. Make sure to check the whole thing out with the links below!

Easily the most impressive thing about the Surface Go is its hardware. Everything about this device feel premium, and is way nicer than any other sub-$500 computer I’ve used in my life in the PC space. Now, the iPad is less expensive and just as premium, if not more in some ways, but for PC, this is as good as it gets. Hell, even if this was a $900 tablet, I’d say the exact same thing: this tablet is awesome to handle.

The Surface Go has a magnesium case that feels really good to the touch. It just feels premium in the same way that Apple products always have that special “something” that makes them feel a cut above the rest. I really like it to say the least.

Inputs Are Excellent

In terms of inputs, there is:

  • 1 USB-C port
  • 1 Surface Connector
  • 1 headphone jack
  • 1 Type Cover connector
  • 1 micro-SD card slot

That’s a bit more than the iPad Pro, and it might even be more than your Mac. This is a decent number of ports for a tablet, but I never found they got in the way at all. They’re all well cut into the device and don’t make themselves notifiable in general use.

The USB-C port works for connecting accessories, powering the device, or acting as a display out port. I typically use it for that last reason, docking the device in my 27″ HP display and treating it like a desktop computer when that makes sense. I love this ability and I wish it was something I could do with my iPad Pro. It’s worth noting this is not a Thunderbolt port as well, but that’s expected on such a low cost device.

The Surface Connector is something I’ve only ever used for charging, but you can also use it with the Surface Dock which gives you many more ports, if that’s the sort of thing you need. Even if you just use it for charging, it’s more than capable, charging the Go quite quickly. I wasn’t able to get any exact times, but as an iPad Pro user, it seemed about the same to me as what I was used to. Oh, and it’s a magnetic connector that pops out with a tug, so MagSafe fans will like this.

The headphone jack…works, and the Type Cover connector works wonderfully, and I’ll talk about that in the next part of the review.

Finally, the micro-SD slot is nicely tucked away beneath the kickstand and you don’t even notice it’s there. I have the 64GB model, which can fill up very fast, especially since Windows takes up a lot of that on its own, so adding a 128GB card for about $30 off Amazon seemed like a good call. I’ve installed a few apps and games to it and it works fine for me. It’s just another internal drive and you can set apps and games to install to it by default instead of the small internal drive. I’m glad it’s there.

Battery Life Struggles…Hard

That quick charge from the Surface Connector good to have, because the Surface Go does not get very good battery life. Just now, as I’m writing my review and have Edge and a text editor open, my 65% battery life is going to get me just 2 hours and 19 minutes. Not only that, I find that when the computer says I have 20 minutes left, I actually have less than one minute left. This is a far cry from the 8 hours that many modern laptops get, and the 10+ hours that a modern iPad gets.

I really think the culprit here is more the operating system than the tablet’s battery itself, as Windows is just a much heavier operating system than we we have in something like iOS on the iPad. But I said this wasn’t going to be a review of Windows, so let’s just leave it at: the Surface Go gets poor battery life, often about 4-5 hours tops.

The Kickstand is Wonderful

As I have written about numerous times, I’m a huge fan of the kickstand built into the Surface Go. I like that it’s easy to use, it’s well integrated into the device, and it makes it a more usable device in more situations.

At a core level, I love being able to stand the Surface Go at whatever angle I want, and I especially love being able to do this without having a case. I can just use the Surface Go “naked” and transition from handheld use, to standing it on a counter, to angling it down even more to draw on it, all without involving any accessories. This means I get more flexibility without needing to add any bulk in terms of a case or cover like I would on the iPad.

As a bonus, the stand works at any angle between 0 degrees (closed) and 165 degrees, which is basically every angle I could ever want. It holds firm in whatever angle I set and never drifts into another angle after time passes.

My only complaint is with how sharp the edge of the stand is. In order for the stand to be as invisible as possible on the device, Microsoft had to make it very thin; like 1 or 2 millimetres thin. While I find this to be good in most cases, it’s not super comfortable on my lap, especially when wearing shorts. It really can dig into your legs after only a few minutes of use and is genuinely uncomfortable. If I’m wearing jeans, it’s not a problem at all.

And because you’re definitely curious, yes, it does work pretty well on my lap. It’s really neck-and-neck with the Smart Keyboard with the iPad Pro in terms of how many angles it works with, which is to say most. But people who want a clamshell laptop’s worth of flexibility will be a little let down. It does need to be treated a bit gingerly in a way a laptop doesn’t. As someone who lives with an iPad and has no real issues, this wasn’t a issue for me but it could be for you.

Windows Hello Gets the Job Done

This is diving a bit into Windows itself, but the Surface Go has a front-facing camera that can be used to unlock the device with your face. I do not have an iPhone X, so take this impression with a grain of salt.

The feature tends to work pretty fast, and is reliable enough that I have come to rely on it instead of my password most of the time. It probably works about 80-90% of the time, which isn’t perfect, but it’s decent. If this was my phone, I wouldn’t find that good enough, but I unlock this thing maybe 5-10 times a day, so it’s less of a hassle.

It seems to struggle the most when either in very dark or bright situations. It has yet to work outdoors for me (again, would be unacceptable for a phone), and while it’s not perfect, it’s surprisingly adept at getting me in the dark. I’ve been in the complete dark with only the Surface Go’s screen illuminating me, and it worked.

The Cameras are…Yikes

As weird as it seems to many people, there are a ton of people who use their tablets to shoot photos, so one would hope the Surface Go had decent cameras on it. Sadly, this is by far the weakest part of the product.

There are 2 cameras here, one rear camera that shoots 8MP stills and 1080p video, while the front-facing one does 5MP stills and 1080p video, but only in Skype. Neither camera is good by tablet standards, but the front-facing one at least stacks up well compared to most laptops on the market.

I would love to do a full comparison, and I do plan on doing one on its own, but just know that if you want to get a device for doing Skype and Google Meet calls, this will do you quite well. If you are looking for something to take to your kid’s school event, then this is going to leave you wanting way more and something like an iPad or definitely your phone will do you much better.

Here are a few simple (unmodified) examples:

The Speakers are Pretty Normal

Microsoft advertises “2W stereo speakers with Dolby® Audio™ Premium” and that translates to speakers that sound nice, but not amazing. Most things sound quite nice, although there is a major lack of low end sounds to my ears.

When I did side-by-side comparisons with a couple iPads and a MacBook Pro, it came out closest to the iPad (2017), which makes a lot of since as that is also the device closest in price and form factor.

The dual speakers are both 2/3 of the way up the bezels on the sides of the Surface Go. I didn’t find my hands covering them often, and covering them purposely didn’t totally block them out, it just made them a bit muffled. Sadly, they don’t match up with the iPad Pro’s 4 speaker array that shifts to make sure you are always hearing things in stereo, but since there are only 2 of them, they simply can’t always be in the right place.

Overall, the speakers are totally acceptable and would only be a disappointment to an iPad Pro user who likes to crank it up, because the Go doesn’t get nearly as loud or as full.

That Tablet is Thick! And Have You Seen Those Bezels?

So there are two things about the Surface Go that are going to stand out immediately to Apple fans, and those are the bezels and the overall thickness. I get it, but I’ve saved these for last because I honestly don’t find them terribly annoying.

First, the bezels. These are definitely more iPad 2 size and not iPad Pro or even the current standard iPad. They’re thick, yes, but I am kind of surprised how little I mind them. I notice them sometimes, and it would certainly be nicer if the screen was a tad bigger, but in general use I never even think about it. Full disclousre, I had to make an edit to this part of the review because I completely forgot to even talk about them!

Then there is the thickness, which is 8.3mm. By most standards, that’s pretty thin, but the current iPad Pro is 6.1mm thick and the cheap iPad is 7.5mm. Especially compared to my daily driver, the iPad Pro, the 36% thicker Surface Go is noticibly more substantial in the hand (it’s also 11% heavier than the Pro). But that also doesn’t really bother me much at all. The difference is noticible, and when holding them next to each other the iPad is the clear winner in terms of form factor, but the Surface Go holds it’s own just fine. When you consider that the Smart Keyboard then adds more thickness than the Surface Type Cover, they end up being almost the same thickness when each is folded up with their keyboards.

These may be concerns for some people, but they have not bothered me in any meaningful way.

Takeaway

The hardware on the Surface Go feels like it’s punching above its weight class most of the time. The build quality is plainly excellent, and there are plenty of specific features that are very, very nice. The kickstand (ahem) stands out to me as a big win for this device, and I really want to see Apple add this to the iPad.

If you know what you’re getting into in terms of performance (see the next part of this review) and Windows in general, then I can’t imagine many people being let down by this overall package. The cameras and battery are the worst aspects, but the overall package is quite appealing.

Microsoft Surface Go Review: Introduction

August 27, 2018 - 2 minutes read time

This is a multi-part review. Make sure to check the whole thing out with the links below!

The Microsoft Surface Go was always going to be a hard sell for me. I’m an Apple fan with Apple sensibilities, and Windows has never ceased to be a thorn in my side. I use Windows 10 every day for work, so about 40 hours of my week is spent in front of this operating system. I’m very familiar with it, and my livelihood depends on me being adept at using it. I’m just not a fan of Windows.

That said, I do like what Microsoft has been doing with the Surface line over the past few years, and I always kind of wanted to dip my toe in the water. When Microsoft announced a $399 Surface tablet that directly targeting my favorite computer in the world, the iPad, I took notice.

Can this do the things I use an iPad for? Since it runs a “big boy” operating system, will I feel more empowered with it than I am with the iPad that IO use every day to do all of my work for BirchTree? How are the Windows 10 apps and do they feel like a new leaf compared to the mountain of legacy software that most people seem to still use?

I had to find all of this out.

So while I have pretty strong opinions on Windows itself, I’m going to try to review the Surface Go on its own terms. This is supposed to be a device that’s good at doing simple tasks quickly. It’s meant to watch videos, edit Word documents, draw things, listen to music, browse the web, and handle email. I’m not going to judge it on anything else like video games or complex audio/video/image editing (although I will at least tell you how it does at those things).

Please check in over the coming week as the full review comes out. In the next section we’re going to talk about hardware.