Surface Go

There is a lot to love about this but it falls just short of perfect. Let me be upfront - I am a dyed in the wool Apple man and have been ever since Microsoft brought out widows 8 which I hated with a passion. At that point I already had an iPhone and iPad so going the whole hog with a MacBook seemed a no brainier. I still think it is the best integrated system there is but recently, the fact that iPad iOS is so limited has begun to annoy me. I still have to use a pc for work. This meant I was carrying around a notebook and pen (my iPad didn’t support the pencil) an iPad to be able to use all my productivity apps that my workplace wouldn’t allow me install or more likely didn’t exist on pc. I was about to update my iPad with a new one that used the pencil but I still needed a mobile platform for a full version of excel, not the iOS cut down version. So I looked at the Go. What’s to like? Well windows 10 is a breath of fresh air and is what Windows 8 should have been. I love the fact that on such a tiny gadget, I get full versions of office 365 which is perfect as I move from location to location and spend a hell of a lot of time on trains. To my utter amazement, when I set up my one drive, it recognised I had a work OneDrive account and gave me access without any todo which I fully expected from my super security conscious employer. I have chosen to break the mould and keep it in S mode. I find it largely fine. There are a few things I would love to put on it but I have realised I don’t actually need them. One is my cycling fitness training app the Sufferfest. (It’s on my old iPad) I would have to come out of S mode to be able to Download that because it’s not on the windows store. Also the kindle app isn’t on the Microsoft store!! What?!! That is a real shame actually and was nearly a deal breaker. I read a lot of technical books which I like to note in OneNote. I’ve got over it by having to use my kindle device which is far from ideal as still annoying. The reason for keeping it in s mode is I still don’t trust windows. Apples ecosystm just works. Windows does too but in my experience you need to know how too change the oil and spark plugs when you lift the bonnet. Not so with Apple. Windows S provides a nice safe environment which doesnt allow apps to mess with your settings and I love that. My old home PC take about 5 minutes to boot up because of all the garbage in my start up. I haven’t worked out how to get rid of it but then I use my MacBook all the time now. As a result, the fact this comes with an old and supposedly slow processor, I dont find it noticeably sluggish at all. I am sure 8gb and 120gb of solid state memory really helps but I also don’t do anything that hammers the processor like photo of film editing.I will use my Mac for that. I also don’t play games (life’s too short and there is a whole world to play in outside). I do use spreadsheets a lot. I say that but as a senior manager, I have many minions who do the heavy lifting but I do need to review their stuff. Some of the financial models we use can be fairly large and they seem to work just fine on the surface go. Similarly PowerPoint t and word seem fine and I have yet to find any presentations that are sluggish but then I haven’t had any yet with more than about 30 slides. I mainly use it for OneNote anyway, especially in meetings. With the pen it’s brilliant. I don’t need my notebook and pen anymore. The only bummer and I don’t know if it is the processor or not (I guess it probably is) I find the hand writing recognition software is slow, probably too slow for my needs. But, the accuracy of the recognition is seriously impressive. Another thing to like is the USBc port. I bought a little Lenovo adaptor that gives me a VGA type adaptor as well as HDMI and a USB port. To the usb port I have an old usb expansion port plugged in which means I can run it on a big screen as well as use external keyboard and mouse. Mind you, I don’t bother doing that much as the track pad and keyboard are fine, as is the screen (bar the gripes below). So what’s not to like. Well a few things bug me a little. Firstly, as an (ahem!) older gentleman, I like things big so I do t need my reading glasses all the time. Annoyingly, Microsoft have shrunk the icons to match the screen size. I am sure there is a setting that would enable them to be bigger and therefore probably fewer of them but I haven’t found it yet. Apple iOS icons are a decent size. When you’ve filled the desktop, they give you another page to swipe through. Don’t think this puppy does that. Shame. The second thing that is really annoying is that there doesn’t appear to be any anti glare. This is really annoying when i’m Commuting. Finally battery life sucks. The quoted 7 hours is laughable. I dont seem to get much more than 4 maybe 5 hours which is appalling. The good thing is i’m not often that far from a power plug so it’s not been a problem yet. Also, you can carve it with a USBc cable but it takes forever and doesn’t seem to work with the IPad uk usb charger unit. The charger that comes with it isn’t too bulky and the US one is nice and small. I don’t rate the Edge browser nor Bing as a search engine. I can’t seem to set another search engine such as DuckDuckGo or god forbid google as my default browser. However saving one as a favourite works but it’s an extra step to get onto the web. I have had a few problems with accessing one of my web enabled IOS productivity apps - Toodledo which I have using for years. It seems the version of java or whatever gizmo needed to get the full benefit isn’t up to date enough and working out how to do updates in S mode was a complete pain, thankfully sorted for me by the flagship Microsoft store on Oxford Street, London. As it happens, I discovered Microsoft ToDO which does what I want really well. Finally the Microsoft store is pants really! There’s not a busting amount on it given the huge quantity of software available for download from vendor sites. Ok, you can always come out of S mode but for someone with no interest in knowing how to tinker under the bonnet, I want a device which just works. Windows has never been that OS. I think windows 10 S has the potential but I am probably the only review that likes the idea and reality of S mode (to a point). Overall, I am really happy with this and it does what I need. I’d still prefer to use an iPad at the end of the day but that is probs it because I am used to them. But until they introduce a Mac OS like windows 10 that can work on their iPads and therefore do all I need with MS office, I will stick happily to my surface go. I think Microsoft are onto a winner and maybe if they clear some of my minor niggles for the Go version 2, it really will become a fantastic go to tablet that is an iPad killer. Just no cigar yet Microsoft!

Why I love this thing, it's because it does way more for me than what tablets promised to do. If you are looking at chromebook type devices, this is a much more versatile device imo. It's a full windows OS so I never need to think "will it run this program that I normally use". It will. I wouldn't recommend it for use over 3+ continuous hours because this is a 10" screen afterall and it will strain your eyes especially if you like smaller fonts. The GO works perfectly for me because from time to time I need to log into work to do work and I don't feel like carrying my laptop with me everywhere in case I need it. GO is much lighter and is perfect for those cases where I need to spend 45 minutes logging into the office to restart a server/service etc. But being a regular laptop it works offline. While you won't be able to do much with mobile apps since windows mobile app is pathetic. But for content consumption like watching movies, you are better off with windows than ios or android because you have access to full VLC, windows media player and all the other wonderful tools that doesn't required a walled off garden and the permission of a giant corporation to be allowed to install it. I don't care if MS likes it if I install something or not because they can't control it. So I no longer have to carry a laptop and a tablet when I travel. This is sufficient. From a practical stand point, think of what you can do with a i3 processor and thats what the surface GO can handle easily. Adobe Premiere seems perfectly fine. I wouldn't try hard core gaming. It's not designed for that kind of stress. Anything else, it will run fine. It won't get hot, no throttling. Don't like that it only have 1 USB C and no USB A. Don't like the idea of dongles on a mobile device. Defeats the purpose. The alcantara keyboard is very responsive but I find that I do make more typing mistakes because of the size. But it's still comfortable enough to write a document without making me Rage. First thing I did was get rid of Windows S (stands for stupid) and go right to Windows 10 Pro. I already have a surface book so I didn't need to buy a pen. For those complaining that this doesn't come with a pen. I personally would have hated a pen to be included because nothing is free and they would have jacked up the price of the base model with a pen. Since I already have a pen why would I buy another one? One nice thing you can do is that win 10 now supports casting from your android and ios devices (latter is more temperamental because well ... Apple). So I can navigate through youTube or kindle on my phone and cast it directly to my Surface GO and get a bigger playback screen. It's basically remote desktop for mobile devices but with view only. Doesn't take a genius to realize that MS is eventually going to make interaction possible ala remote desktop. So for 1-2 hours workload or not knowing when you need to work so you need to carry a laptop with you always, I'm thrilled with this device. I got it during the holidays and deals. Paid $403 for the device with 8gigs ram/ 128gig ssd. $105 for the alcantara keyboard. Another $30 for a 128gig microSD. Biggest gripe is that I wish the bezels were smaller and the screen closer to 11". If they just improve palm rejection there wouldn't be a need for thick bezel. 2nd gripe is the lack of USB A. A minor gripe would be the power supply is not the same as my surface book which has a usb A on it for charging devices. They could have just used the same charger.

Amazing product. In love with it.

Before deciding to purchase this, I watched and read many reviews online. The Surface Go has received so much hate and I just don't understand why. This isn't meant to be used as the main computer. However, it is perfect as a browsing and media machine. The build quality on Surface products is nothing short of incredible. The body is all metal and is incredibly sturdy and exudes quality. The hinged stand which is a staple of Surface devices is nothing short of amazing. You can set it at any angle and it just works. It is incredibly secure and never slips. The only issues I have with the Go is the bezels (I wish they were a bit smaller), and only having one USB-C port. It would have been amazing to be able to charge the Go through one USB-C connection while I use the other for attaching devices. Yes, I know you can use the included charger which attaches to the expansion slot, but I find it so much easier to just charge though USB-C even if it is slightly slower. Not needing to bring a separate charger just for this computer and instead charge it with the same cable I would for my phone is so much more convenient. As a computer, this works for browsing. I have personally taken it out of S-mode so I can install any Windows application on it I want. With 8GB of RAM and the 128GB SSD, the performance isn't bad at all. It isn't the most responsive when using Chrome on large web pages, but that is to be expected. Chrome is fairly resource intensive. On the other hand, using Edge it easily handles any page you can throw at it. Windows productivity software like Excel, Word, and Power Point work exactly as you would expect them to. Communication software works perfectly as well. One of the things I really like about the surface line is the face unlock. It does use an IR light so you won't have any issues unlocking it even in the dark. Doing so is incredibly fast and it pains me having to type in a password manually on my desktop computer. One thing I am unable to review is the Surface keyboard. If I need a keyboard I will just connect to one wirelessly through Bluetooth. The stylus is great though. It does fall short of something like a Wacom tablet but is usable for drawing and perfect for a mouse substitute. For a media tablet this checks every box as well. I installed K-Lite Codec Pack on it and it has no issues playing anything I can throw at it. Even 50GB+ 4k movies with DTS audio streamed over the network from my server are no problem at all for this. Same with 4k YouTube videos. The speakers are quite surprising. They are loud, clear, provide a decent amount of bass, and are actually stereo. The screen is excellent quality with a great contrast ratio and vivid colors. The battery life when viewing media is also more than enough for a cross-country flight. Now, the heart of the matter is value. The Surface Go isn't a cheap device. Yes, it is primarily a tablet. But it is also so much more. The build quality is on par with the new iPad Pro's. But the iPad is almost twice the price, has half the storage, and is running a mobile OS. You can do everything on this you can with a tablet, while still having the flexibility of a full computer. To me, this is a win-win situation. The intended customer for this isn't someone looking for a $250 Android tablet. The customer who should be getting this will mostly be using it as a tablet, while still wanting the option to use it as a full computer when they are on the go. For that, the Surface Go is perfect.

Excelente relación calidad precio. Es el producto perfecto para quien busca movilidad y versatilidad en un solo producto. El rendimiento es aceptable para navegación por internet y actividades de ofimática. Pero evitalo si lo quieres para jugar o editar foto o vídeo. Sus capacidades no son las adecuadas. La calidad de construcción es excelente. La batería dura alrededor de 6 hrs en el modo ahorrador.

Ich arbeite oft mit Schreibpads, und wenn ich einen Vortrag gebe, brauche ich ein Tablet, was keine Probleme hat, meine handschriftlichen Notizen sofort über Beamer oder Smart-Board umzusetzen. Das Surface Go packt es sehr gut! Ich hatte vor ein paar Monaten ein günstigere Marke gekauft und leider war das Tablet von der günstigeren Marke nicht so gut.

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