Gadgetory

the surface go isn't what you expect I was expecting a relatively low end Windows computer to go with its relatively low end processor I was expecting to be unimpressed with the tiny keyboard and I was expecting to be unimpressed with its speed what I wasn't expecting is how much of a joy this thing is to use surface go is a 10-inch Windows hybrid device it's basically like a really small surface pro the base model costs 399 but the model everybody should probably get starts at 550 but you have to get a keyboard to go with it and you really should and that's either $100 or 130 dollars if you want the very soft and nice Alcantara fabric to get the surface go down to size Microsoft had to do a bunch of engineering obviously but it also had to make a few compromises compared to what you might be used to on a larger Windows laptop those laptops tend to run Intel Core i5 processors which are pretty speedy but this has an Intel Pentium Gold processor and what that means is it's a little bit slower but it's still better than what you get in the cheapest you know Windows or Chrome laptops that are out there as long as you adjust your expectations accordingly you can do just fine with this thing I was able to run a bunch of apps and although they were simple it still felt relatively responsive for this review what I want to do is answer a bunch of the questions that have come in from the community now I can't answer them all but I really think we're gonna hit on all the major themes here so the first round of questions that we've got are about how powerful this machine is and a lot of people wanted us to compare it to the cheaper model so jail clardy asked if we'd be able to compare the models and he specifically brought up the emmc storage on the base model so let's talk about that a little bit the base model again starts at 399 and it has only four gigs of ram which maybe isn't enough to run what you want on Windows but it also has this thing called emmc storage or 64 gigs of it and that type of storage is a little bit slower than a proper SSD unfortunately I haven't been able to test it I'm sorry but my very strong suspicion is you'll want to get this model which starts at 550 and for that extra price you get a proper 128 SSD and you get 8 gigs of ram which is plenty for running a bunch of apps as long as they're relatively easy to use simple apps another way to get at this question of how powerful this machine is to talk about gaming so here's the real story with gaming we installed some Windows Store games a cup had crashed on launch title deals there Ori in the blind forest which doesn't seem that intense of a game to me it ran but it was just a little bit sluggish as far as steam goes I'll be honest I didn't do anything crazy I didn't install pub GE I don't even think this would be great for fortnight but I did install game called transistor which is really fun and relatively lightweight and it ran just fine so you can game on this thing but you're not gonna be frightening anybody in first-person shooters on this thing it's just not that powerful Geoffrey gromek on Twitter wants to know if the screen quality is enough for light photo editing I want to talk about that and power at the same time so we went ahead and installed Adobe Lightroom CC and a W Lightroom cc classic and it does better than you expect you can edit a couple of photos in a pinch there's a little bit of lag but you can pinch and zoom things are pretty good but if you're doing anything super intense in terms of batch photo editing or stitching panoramas together this is not your machine the bigger deal when it comes to photo editing is that this 10 inch screen just feels a little bit cramped if you're doing really intense photo editing there was just not enough real estate here and you end up really zooming in on it really closely and speaking of things being small a lot of people asked about the keyboard of the trackpad because they're not full-sized but you get used to both right away the keys are really easy to type on the trackpad is glass and it's precision too and so it's very very accurate I haven't had a problem at all alright let's get through some other build quality stuff really quick Steven Harris wants know about battery life I've been getting about 6 hours of active use which is pretty solid Microsoft rates it for 9 hours of video playback but you should never expect that the good news is that you can charge it either via the surface connector that comes with it or USB C and depending on how high your USB C thing is you can charge it relatively fast I've been impressed with how quickly this thing charges Nathan Norris wants to know if that USB C port we just talked about is also Thunderbolt 3 didn't work when I plugged a Thunderbolt 3 into it but it did work with my dongles to power my monitor and get other USB stuff going on it Samrat asked what the speakers they are front-facing stereo speakers they're on the left and the right of the screen and they sound really good especially for a device of this price class they're much better than I expected they're great for watching you movin Campton on Twitter wants to know about the pen I'm not a huge surface pen user but I haven't seen much lag which is a bunch of other people have asked about so that's impressive and the build quality here is solid you're not going to feel any give or whatever on the screen it's really really good probably the most questions that we've received have been about s mode and so it's time to talk about s mode and I have feelings here's the deal with S mode it ships on by default on the surface Co and that means you can only use the edge browser and apps from the Microsoft Windows Store and in theory that could be great because you know that you're getting a bunch of lightweight apps and they'll run really well on the surface Co in practice the apps just aren't there my personal favorite example is I need one password not on the Windows Store but the browser extension is and so I got error messages whatever you're gonna end up turning s mode off and that's fine and fast and easy you don't even have to reboot but it's gonna mean you're gonna install apps are gonna bog this thing down a little bit like I don't know Chrome kind of boxing down a little bit it's all emotional for me because Microsoft has the right idea taking mobile apps and making them for larger screens they did it before chrome did it with Android they did it before Apple did it with marzipan apps on the Mac they've got the right idea but the execution is still broken they don't have the apps yet we got a lot of questions asking me to compare the surface go to Chromebook or to an iPad or to a bigger Windows laptop or even I don't know to the Mac hello not so much of the Mac there are so many variables especially in this mid-range that making a comprehensive comparison is basically impossible compared to an iPad on a basic level you could probably be more productive with this thing but the tablet apps are like they're worse compared to a Chromebook you can you know get more apps do more stuff but it's nowhere near as simple as a Chromebook can be and compared to the Mac I mean that's just a whole different category my bottom line is if you like Windows this is a really great tiny Windows machine all right I think we're gonna cut it off there thank you everybody for your questions I'm sorry if I didn't get to yours but hopefully we touched on the major themes I want to talk about my take on this machine one of my favorite things about Windows is it never really stops you from doing one of the questions we got was can you do CAD work on this and sure you can do it I just don't think it'll be a very good experience when you use a Windows machine you kind of have to know the limits of that machine and that applies especially to the surface go if you know what to expect and you stay within those limits this thing will totally impress you and when you use it there's just something about the design and the curves and everything that just makes you kind of love this thing and that at the end of the day is quite an achievement everybody thanks for watching let me know if you were to get this thing what would you use it for tell me in the comments and then when you're done if you're looking for another gadget video to watch we just did a this is my next of the best smartphone under $300 Jake made it it's really good advice and a really fun video so you should check that out bye