Gadgetory

so as you guys know I've been playing around with a lot of computing devices laptops of course the recent iPads I'm interested in form factors when it comes to computers because I mean stuff is happening there and of course Microsoft with their surface products they're looking at something like this it's sort of a tablet it's sort of a laptop when you add the keyboard cover like this now I've looked at surface products in the past but nothing this small nothing this portable this of course is the Microsoft Surface go my recent experience with the iPad pro I was kind of surprised at how much I could get done on there of course there were some walls that I bumped into mostly software related which may not pop up on something like this which is running full out Windows is it a better kind of stopgap towards this future of computing is it a better hybrid of the laptop and a tablet let's crack this one open and get a sense for it an Intel Pentium Gold processor 4415 Y so it's nowhere near as powerful as the surface pro 128 gigs of storage 8 gigs of ram let's crack into it now the horse power thing is an interesting discussion because obviously this is not the most powerful system out there but what are most people doing on these systems can it do the main functions well I talked a lot about typing that's what many people do on these systems email the basic stuff USB type-c there's a headphone jack face unlock likely I like this finish there's a camera on the back as well and then of course in the kickstand here from the side here like this look at that built right in no case necessary no folio necessary just immediately stand able pretty slender little power brick of course with Microsoft's magnetic charge connector in his slim fashion as opposed to poking out too far it's crazy thin look at how thin this keyboard cover is and this is something I really wish that Apple did with the iPad pro keyboard because you still have nice clicky like plastic like real keyboard buttons but not much form-factor at all look at that how cool is that kind of what Google was going for with the pixel slate well I just think Microsoft from a hardware perspective is a step ahead here so the keyboard is not huge nonetheless it's still way ahead in my opinion when compared with the folio the keyboard folio that you can get on the iPad this is still so much better to type on I mean I don't even turn the system on yet and it's just a place that I would rather be fold it up that's your form factor that's your package it's fatter than the iPad but the thing is the keyboard cover is more slender than the two-sided folio on the iPad so you can have it down flat like that or fold it up like that for a little angle to the deck there is a look at the display you can see they went with though the black background minimizing the bezel effect but yes the bezels are there you can you can see them if you look at the reflection I have to say I'm just a fan of small computing devices like this under the arm to be able to carry this and only this it's the size of an actual notebook always been a fan of portability when it comes to devices like this now this is the smallest one that they've ever made it's the least powerful one that they've ever made so I kind of see this as a note-taking machine a web browsing machine and email machine in a package for a student or someone who travels a lot maybe is constantly using the tray table on an airplane this form factor gives you tremendous flexibility to work almost anywhere I mean even if you're in a coffee shop you can tell the footprint is tiny now the other cool thing about the surface products is just how far this hinge can go back you can go all the way down to there so even if I didn't have the type cover I could bring up an on-screen keyboard and I could go ahead and type with a slight angle now let's go ahead and test out some multimedia I think some people are obviously going to watch video on a product like this I'm noticing it looks like it has front-facing speakers here in the left and the right now one thing you're gonna notice is you're gonna have black bars on the top and bottom that's just to do with the aspect ratio of the actual display you can see this is video aspect ratio in the center here so you do have some black bars breathable noise okay the speakers work they're not they're not blowing me out of the water here no it's it's nowhere near iPad pro territory performance wise on audio it's passable it's usable but if I really wanted to get something pumping I would probably use a Bluetooth speaker or even a headphone jack since at least it still has that this is 1800 by 1200 so not quite 1920 by 1080 it's a bit of an unusual resolution it's a pretty small display so that's not such a huge deal but I can't put it in the same category as the 11 inch iPad pro of course that one has the smooth motion it's a very interactive feeling it's a great display to work on where the iPad pro I think really excels as a consumption device I feel like this would probably be a nicer place to type so it's a bit of a trade-off there so what's our pricing on this we'll it starts at 399 bucks which is actually kind of amazing for something that runs a full-out operating system and you can add these types of accessories to it but just keep this in mind this thing is not a powerhouse the proposition here is not to go edit a bunch of videos on here or throw really hard core tasks added it's more setup for your day-to-day functionality and an entry-level price point I think for a student this thing is really cool and of course if you wanted more power you could step up to the surface pro that's an option for you I would love to see possibly more powerful components in this trim down form factor more on par with the surface pro I'm gonna use it a little bit more I'm gonna keep it around the office I may even switch over to it for a little while so my thoughts will probably evolve in this department Microsoft is doing something here it'll be the surface pro 6 that I look at next but this one is kind of cool