Surface Go, a worthy surface 3 successor.

My Go … a perfect replacement for the Surface 3 that has powered my business for the past three years. The only change I had to make was the addition of a Surface Dock to replace the old Surface 3 dock.

 

, I agree with aVex, the bezels are also important for the keyboard, the magnets (for the pen and keyboard) and perhaps also the speakers. I do think they should be reduced a bit but not as thin as the new ipad pro (where the thin bezels seem to be more about form over function in my opinion).

I hope more OEMs besides Lenovo will make Surface Go clones, e.g. perhaps they will release one that is a bit heavier (lets say 600 gr instead of ~500(?)) in exchange for a bigger battery. Probably at least one OEM would make a clone with thinner bezels too.

 

How's the battery life?

 

I wouldn’t say thinner bezels are form over function as screen estate is at a premium and a very functional part of use and will assisf in productivity.

 

For the size and the CPU, lousy. Something like this should be targeting 8-10+ hours easily considering the power of these CPU’s (or lack of). Microsoft didn’t think adding more battery was worth it for some strange reason.

 

Bronsky,

Too bad they did away with the surface 3 style dock hey? It was the best. Drop the device in and everything was in a nice tidy package. The surface dock now looks like an afterthought.

 

, to a certain degree I agree, which is why I think (/said) the bezels should be a bit thinner. However that last bit of bezel does not add much to the size but does make space for lots of other features. Of course eventually all or most of those features can be put behind the screen and palm rejection will be reliable enough, but I think it is currently too early to completely remove the bezel on tablets.

, that is to keep the weight and costs down. E.g. Lenovo's clone Tablet 10 has a bigger battery but also is ~680 gr, which arguably is too heavy if you want to hold the tablet for a longer time. We will have to wait for WoA/snapdragon windows tablet for really good battery life (current gen already shows excellent battery life but performance can/will be much better with the next gen's).

 

How is 680 grams too heavy? Like honestly? What kind of holding was you expecting to do with this that would render this too heavy?

That's the same weight as the old iPad's and the newer iPad's are even heavier and I have yet to hear anyone complain about the weight of iPad's. And this is a device with a lot more power so will see a lot more desk/lap use compared to an iPad which functionally is much more limited. The real reason for the lack of battery is cost saving I'd wager.

 

, the old Ipads also feel a bit clumsy tbh. I have a Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140 and while I find it usable as a tablet, I wished it was a bit lighter. Though I do keep my tablet relatively speaking high in front of me (better for the neck) and probably a bit further away than the average person. Also I stand and move quite a bit with my tablet.
I tried an Ipad 2017 which I found to be really nice to hold, though I prefer Windows to iOS (even on tablets/touchscreens).

 

At the end of the day, having something slightly heavier is infinitely more useful than something light as a feather and out of battery, which makes it unusable. The battery life is really low, especially if you do actual tasks and not just iPady stuff on it. I couldn’t take this to do a days work without a charger with me like I can with say my XPS 9360, which is a shame.

If they made it 680g with all day battery life, I’d actually consider buying one (despite those ugly bezels). Given the choice of all day battery life and a couple of hundred of grams in weight, the majority is likely to favour the battery life I reckon. You have very unique work flow to most which makes you more weight sensitive.

 

, that is a good point, though you can charge the Go with usb c so you only need to bring along a small cable. Hopefully more OEMs will make Go clones, I do find these devices intriguing.

 

I can complain then I bought iPad 4 few years ago and sold it to my colleague one week later.

It was a combination of size and weight and happened under special circumstances though.
I had really bad tennis elbows at that time and holding iPad in one hand it applied torque through my fingers and hand to arm muscles and the pain was unbearable. (Second reason was I cheaped out and got the 16GB model, it was filled the first evening with all the games..) I bought iPad mini 2 with larger memory right afterwards and it has served me well ever since.

With that experience, I do believe that for some people using a tablet one-handed while poking the screen with a stylus in the other hand might be too much. Like checking manifests or something that requires walking around while making notes or checking boxes, no chance using it on table. How hard it affects user depends on user itself, tablets weight and also size matter because it has difference on the torque it makes in the users hand.

 

Firstly the whole tennis elbow thing again makes you part of a small group of users.

Now, walking around taking notes/checks is a task done in many professions, though they are usually provided with some sort of PDA to do that (funnily some are heavy and not very user friendly but they still manage).

A laptop with Windows 10 however is far too capable of a machine to be doing a job like that (it also doesn’t have the battery life to handle it without charging during the work day possibly). It is again another minor use that most will not do.

The majority of people who would use this laptop are not walking around with a stylus believe me (it’s already bad enough people walking around looking at their phones, don’t want to imagine people walking around using a Windows “tablet”).

 

, where I live lots of people use their phone when cycling, imagine them using tablets on a bike

Indeed not many people will probably work & walk/stand at the same time with their Go, but I can imagine people quickly doing some work/edits when they are waiting for something or someone (e.g. using thumb typing to quickly check or type something) and than low weight is a nice feature to have. Or e.g. sending out a quick message or email (some prefer it on a tablet than on a phone).

 

I watched lots of YouTube videos with mine as well as surfing the internet some emails I would say I was only getting about 4-5 hours with it but like I said before I really liked it but with the adding the keyboard the cost was too much for me but I would buy it again if the accessories were included for a lower cost.

 

So i bought a Satechi USB-C Multihub v2, plugged it into my Surface Go and I got an insufficient power warning. Anyone tested what this USB-C port on the Go is capable out supplying to power accessories?

https://satechi.net/collections/usb-type-c/products/satechi-aluminum-multi-port-adapter-4k

 

Microsoft has the LTE version up for pre order now. First device I am getting from Microsoft in a few years now. Going to be interesting to compare my iPad LTE to the go LTE.

 

I've had my 8gb Surface Go for about a week now. Luckily, it came with W10 Pro, since it's the "commercial" model. It's definitely a capable device but decidedly low-power. As I'm an evil genius, I decided to see what kind of performance I could coax out of it. *I do not recommend you do this unless you know what you're doing.* First, I turned off connected standby and setup my own power scheme. Now the cpu runs at 100% when plugged in. I installed the full intel video driver, so I have access to the intel control panel. I like my colors more saturated than Microsoft defaults to. I disabled a bunch of stuff, including cortana, windows defender, indexing and anything else I could find. I disabled the meltdown and spectre patches. I'm running W10 insider edition fast ring and Chrome Dev for a browser. Tweaked the hell out of Chrome using extensions and Chrome flags. I have to say, with all the changes, this little tablet runs great. Feels as responsive as my SP4 was. I've been able to run Memu 7.1 android emulator and some vmware windows machines (XP and down) without issues. The biggest difference in perceived performance was when I disabled the meltdown and spectre patches; they must really hamper this cpu. I didn't benchmark anything, just playing around.

TL;DR - I tweaked the crap out of this tablet and it runs great! Love it!

 

The Go is not meant to be a powerhouse. It's meant to be a great tablet/computer for on the go work, and content. It's really cool that you are getting the most out of it!

 

I am getting ready to order mine soon. Getting the 128gb LTE with keyboard, pen and dock. I do miss the surface 3 dock, it was awesome. But it will be a great replacement for my ipad. I have cancelled texture and moved to issuu now. Free content all over the place to get me through. I can download some content for offline viewing as well. Works great, and on everything too!

 

The Surface Go was on my short list for a replacement for my Surface 3. I wanted something fanless, usb-c charging and a more powerful processor... The Surface Go seemed like the natural replacement... until I spent some time playing with it. As it turns out the 10.8" screen on the surface 3 was a bare minimum for me. The increased resolution on the Go didn't make up for the .8" reduction in size.

The Surface Pro 6, i5 would have been a great replacement with its 8250u cpu and fanless design but no usb-c knocked it out as I didn't want to deal with separate charging solutions for different devices. Maybe next time around... but I still wanted fanless and usb-c and there aren't many choices out there. I ended up going with an older 1st gen Thinkpad X1 Tablet with an m5 in it. basically a 4.5w tdp limited version of the i5-6300u. Fanless and USB-c charging. Picked it up in the Lenovo outlet store for under $500 with LTE and keyboard cover. They don't last long when they appear though.

Now if the Surface Pro 7 had a fanless i5 quadcore and usb-c charging with thunderbolt 3. I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

 

Agreed. I'm using it for Office 365, media consumption (Netflix, Emby) and surfing. I'm even doing some light edits using Photoshop CC. Loving this Tablet!

 

I love my 8GB Go. I was able to get one for $425. Good luck finding any tablet with 8 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage for that price. great for internet browsing or playing some old games via emulators. Its surprisingly decent at playing computer games too. Its actually possible to play DOOM 2016 on this. The resolution is low but the framerate is complete playable.

 

Agreed punisher. The go is a fantastic device. It is going to be my next "ipad". I find myself using my ipad apps less and less and using my edge browser on it more and more. There are very few apps I use anymore. Hence the reason I got the ipad in the first place. App availability. I got rid of my surface 3 because I got pissed off at MS for cancelling windows 10 mobile update to my 1020, but the grass is NOT greener on the other side. I went apple for a couple of months. TERRIBLE. The MacOS operating system is down right archaic compared to windows 10. Having full windows 10 on my ipad (surface go) will be AWESOME. add in pen support, real mouse support, keyboard with touch pad, and full windows support, and I have the best mobile device available. The surface pro is way more powerful, however its size keeps me away. The go is the perfect size.

 

I know this thread is a bit old, however, I was struck last week by how very happy I've been with my Surface Go for Business (max memory, WWAN, Win 10Pro) - then I saw this thread randomly today. Previously, I've owned several Surface Pros and just became annoyed with their increasing size. Bought my first Surface Go from the MS store in town only to be told no Win 10 PRO available and no WWAN. Imagine my surprise a couple days later to learn that if one goes through the MS online store for Business, that a maxed out RAM, larger SSD, Win 10 PRO, and WWAN could be had despite the retail MS stores misinformed consumer info. I think this is the most user friendly tablet style device I've ever owned! Love the iPAD profile but hate the limiting iOS - the Surface GO for Business is a better alternative for those needing the extra features...

-cognetic

 

That's the way I feel too. I want more from my iPad, but the surfsce go will fix that.